The Conference
by sandyfin
Summary: Jamie and Eddie fly across the country together to attend a police leadership conference...but there is too much else to do to waste three days in a convention center.
1. Chapter 1

Got inspired this weekend while traveling myself...and also needed to follow up on Jamie's mental health task force, which hasn't really been mentioned on the show since he gave Frank the original idea. Written on my phone...sorry about typos. Enjoy!

* * *

"What was I thinking, letting you book the flights?" Eddie groaned. "Newark Airport is the armpit of American commercial flying."

"Tickets were a hundred bucks cheaper out of here than JFK," Jamie told her.

"But the conference is covering our travel."

"Yep-might as well save them two hundred dollars, right?"

"Ugh. Boy Scout."

They pulled their carry on suitcases through the airport, following the signs to security. The line was horribly long, even at 6am.

"Too early for this," Eddie mumbled, leaning heavily on her suitcase.

"As soon as we get through security we'll find coffee and you'll feel better," Jamie promised.

"You're lucky my only other option was writing parking summonses in the precinct for three days."

"Oh, come on. It'll be fun once we get there."

"I don't know what kind of trips your family took when you were little, Reagan, but a cop conference isn't exactly my ideal weekend getaway."

"Not all of us grew up spending three weekends a month at our dad's vacation house in the Hamptons."

"It was only once or twice a month in high school," Eddie snapped. "And it was Nantucket, not the Hamptons."

"Same difference. And at least we'll be near the beach."

The pair shuffled forward through the maze of barriers that defined the security line. They were going to a law enforcement leadership conference in San Diego. The conference organizers had contacted the NYPD months in advance, asking for a representative from the department's mental health task force to deliver the second day's keynote address. The task force had attracted national attention before, and a few times Jamie's superiors at OnePP had traveled to speak about the innovative program in front of large audiences. But this time, Frank, Garrett Moore and the rest of Frank's inner circle had decided to send Jamie. It would be his first time speaking publicly about the task force outside of the updates he presented every couple of months to the brass at OnePP.

Since he was a featured speaker, the conference paid all Jamie's costs and let him bring one guest. Frank had refused to let him bring any of the higher-ranking members of the task force, wanting Jamie to tackle this challenge on his own in preparation for bigger leadership roles in the department.

And so he brought Eddie.

He had been looking forward to this trip with her for months, though as the conference got closer, nervousness about his speech took up more of his mental energy. He somehow had to fill 50 minutes in front of several hundred top law enforcement officials from around the country, including a few NYPD lieutenants from various other divisions in the department. And that number didn't even include the regular rank and file who'd be there.

Eddie's typical early morning griping was something he usually just put up with, but today he was actually grateful for it. It gave him something to focus on. So he kept her talking as they moved through security.

"There is something really wrong with this system," she was saying now. "You see an 8am flight and you think, oh, not bad! I can do that! But no, it's awful! Get there two hours early, fifty-minute trip to the airport, and you've got to look halfway decent."

"That's not a rule," Jamie said.

"Maybe not, but trust me, you do not want to see this-" she waved her hand in front of her face "-without at least a little bit of makeup, especially not when I'm running on just four hours of sleep."

"Well, whose fault is that?"

"I had to pack when I got home last night! It took forever. Who knows how to dress for a police conference at the beach in February?"

"Attendees will find duty uniforms and/or business casual attire appropriate for daytime conference activities," Jamie quoted.

"It's easy for guys. Khakis and button-up shirts and you're good. For girls? It's way harder."

"Hey, I still had to pick a suit for my presentation. And I brought two shirts and four ties because I couldn't decide which combination is best."

Eddie rolled her eyes. "You're just proving my point. For a girl, _indecisive_ is packing five extra dresses, not a couple extra ties."

"Five extra dresses? Really?"

"Next?"

Jamie stepped aside to let Eddie show her ID first. When the TSA agent waved her through, he offered his.

There was more backup to get through the x-ray screening. Eddie stood next to Jamie and leaned against him; his shoulder was more comfortable that her suitcase. He let her stay there until they had to separate to go through the body scanner.

"Okay, so our gate is this way," Jamie started once they retrieved their things.

"Coffee first," Eddie growled.

Jamie laughed at the look on her face. "Right, right, coffee. There's got to be some on the way." He began walking, leaving Eddie to rush behind to keep up with his long strides.

The Newark airport really was awful. Jamie hadn't been here in four or five years, and the concourse was even more crowded and run-down than he remembered. They bought coffee at the food court, which was really just five fast food counters around a tiny seating area, and went to sit at their gate. Eddie slumped in her seat and propped her feet on her carry-on. Next to her, Jamie watched the close-captioned news on a nearby TV. In his jeans, crisp plaid shirt and stylish shoes, he looked quite put together next to Eddie's leggings and shapeless oversized sweater.

The gate area filled up around them. Two NYPD lieutenants were on the same flight, so Jamie greeted them while Eddie tried to look invisible. This was her biggest concern when Jamie invited her to be his plus-one at such an important, high-profile event: that it would fuel the rumors in the department that the partners were, well, more than that. Jamie had promised her that the event would be so big that they probably wouldn't run into any other NYPD personnel at all, so there was little chance of anything specific reaching back to their precinct...and yet here were two of their superiors on the same flight.

That knowledge made Eddie hyper vigilant at the beginning of their flight. Rather than lean against Jamie and nap like she wanted to, she spent the first hour sitting up straight between Jamie in the window seat and a middle-aged stranger in the aisle. But she and Jamie were towards the front of the economy class, and the lieutenants were both seated near the back. There was no reason for them to walk up towards the front of the plane, so they shouldn't see anything-and so finally Eddie gave in to her tiredness, rested her head on Jamie's shoulder, and fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

With the time change, it was only 11am when Eddie and Jamie landed in San Diego. As soon as they made it into the terminal, Jamie was ready to get a move on.

"Okay, we don't have any checked bags, so we can head straight to ground transportation," he said, spinning slowly as he oriented himself.

"Slow down, sport. I need to use the bathroom. And I'm hungry."

"Of course you are. Wouldn't you rather wait to eat downtown? There will be lots of places near the hotel."

"We can't even check in for a couple more hours. Let's just take our time."

"Alright, okay," Jamie said, though he still planned to move through the airport quickly. There was no reason to hang around. "Bathrooms are up there."

When Jamie came out of the bathroom, Eddie was nowhere to be seen. He assumed she was still in the restroom. He waited; though there wasn't a long line as as far as he could tell, and it really was taking her forever...

"Jamie!"

He turned halfway around and saw her a ways down the terminal, trying to balance a smoothie, an open cup of ice cream, her purse, and her suitcase handle.

"What are you doing?" he asked, hurrying forward to help her.

She handed him the smoothie. "This is for you."

"Thanks. But ice cream before lunch?"

"What? I'm starving. That flight took forever. And it's yogurt."

"Right. Ready to get going?"

"No. I still have to go to the bathroom. Watch my stuff, would you?"

Jamie had no choice but to take her cup of yogurt as she shoved it at him and walked into the ladies' room. Since he was holding it anyway, Jamie helped himself to some of the gummy bears from the cup.

"Why do you always eat my food?" she complained when she came out.

"Healthy moderation. And you're taking forever."

"Please. I'm always the one waiting for you to get out of the locker room after work."

"Come on. We've only got twelve minutes to make the bus or we'll have to wait till noon for the next one."

"What is your hurry? Half an hour is no big deal," she said, but she followed him, holding her yogurt one-handed and licking it instead of stopping to use a spoon.

* * *

Their luxury hotel was just down the street from the convention center; both structures were right on the water overlooking the marina. Their shuttle arrived at noon, an hour before early check-in started.

"Now what are we going to do?" Eddie groaned. "This is why it made no sense to sprint through the airport."

"We didn't _sprint_ ," Jamie argued. "We can leave our bags at the desk and go over to the convention center. Check-in over there started this morning."

He approached the reception desk and informed the woman that he had two rooms reserved.

"Unfortunately your rooms aren't ready yet, Mr. Reagan, so we can't give you your keys. But I'll let them know to put a rush on them so you can go up as soon as possible."

"There's no hurry on the rooms, but could we leave our luggage here while we go over to the convention for a while?"

"Of course. I'll be happy to take it for you. One question: it looks like I can give you two rooms on the same floor, like you requested, but I actually have two adjoining king bed rooms if you'd like that."

"Like, the rooms with the door directly between them, so we don't have to go out into the hall?" Eddie cut in.

"Yes ma'am."

"That sounds great," Eddie said without giving Jamie a chance to offer an opinion. If she had given him that chance, he would've told her that he wasn't sure adjoining rooms was such a good idea.

"Perfect. I've got those reserved for you, then. They'll be ready around one, and when you come back you'll just need to stop by the desk for your keys."

"Thanks so much," Eddie said, and she passed their suitcases and Jamie's backpack to the woman through a gap in the desk.

"Got your shield?" Jamie asked.

"Shield, yes. But I feel kind of naked without my gun," Eddie admitted.

"Me too. I'm not used to leaving it home. But nobody will try anything in a building with a few thousand cops. Let's go."

They crossed the street to the convention center and followed the signs inside to the check-in tables. They received lanyards with name tags, which noted their department, and program books detailing the weekend's schedule. Jamie's name badge stated that he was a featured speaker while Eddie's listed her as a distinguished guest. Eddie flipped through her program and found a full-page ad for Jamie's talk, complete with his stoic department photo taking up a quarter of the space.

"Look!" she giggled. "You look so important!"

"Don't remind me," Jamie groaned.

"Oh, don't be nervous. You're going to be great!"


	3. Chapter 3

"So, I looked online, and there are like six bars between here and the hotel where we can get local craft beers," Eddie told Jamie.

Jamie grimaced. "Not tonight."

"Oh, come on!" Eddie begged, bouncing excitedly on the sidewalk.

They'd just finished dinner at a nice steakhouse with a few of the conference organizers and the other featured speakers, and Eddie had been on her best behavior the entire time. Jamie hadn't seemed to mind the company, but Eddie felt quite out of place as the least accomplished officer at the table. Sure, Jamie was a beat cop like her, but he had a Harvard degree and his task force under his belt to bring him up to the level of all the elites. It didn't help that everyone there had at least heard of Frank Reagan, and a couple of them even knew the Commissioner well. Eddie felt like she was under a microscope, as if any wrong move would get reported directly to her ultimate boss.

But there were no more convention sessions tonight, and dinner was over. Eddie finally felt like she could goof off and release the nervous energy that she'd been hiding through forced sophistication during the meal.

Jamie, however, wasn't so lucky. While Eddie's stress level plummeted as soon as they left the steakhouse, his went through the roof. His presentation was only fourteen hours away.

"Not me, not tonight," Jamie said. "You go ahead, though. I can walk back by myself. Just text me when you're back in your room so I know you didn't make a wrong turn and end up in Mexico."

"Jamie, let's go have fun! We're on vacation!"

"Fun is for after my talk is over."

"Right, that's tomorrow, isn't it?" Eddie said cheerfully, as if she'd forgotten. She hadn't, but she hoped that making light of it would help Jamie chill out a little.

"Yes, it's tomorrow," Jamie hissed. "And I want to run over it once or twice before bed. Plus it's late, and the time change…"

"Okay, fine, let's go back. But this is the only night I'm letting you get out of doing anything."

"You can go!" Jamie repeated.

"No, not without you," she sighed. Another night she might have gone out by herself, but with Jamie's speech tomorrow she knew someone needed to stay with him and make sure he didn't drive himself crazy. "You're the flight risk. Forget me. Someone needs to make sure _you_ don't run off to Mexico."

Jamie chuckled but he wasn't going to argue with her logic. "Fine, I'll buy you a drink at the hotel."

The hotel bar was packed with cops. The place was swanky and sleek, the opposite of a typical New York cop bar, but that didn't seem to bother anyone.

Dressed up from dinner, Eddie looked more like a young, affluent professional than a cop. Half the guys in the place took notice, but Jamie didn't react to them at all—not even to the more crass comments. So she knew that he had to be extremely preoccupied with tomorrow's speech. She downed her margarita quickly, urged Jamie to finish his beer, and practically pushed him to the elevator.

"You sure you don't want to just hang out?" Eddie asked as she let them into her room. "We can find something on TV and just chill."

"No, I have to go over my speech."

"Jamie, you've gone over it a million times. You're ready. You should just relax."

"I think I'm going to change a couple slides."

"You submitted the slideshow a week ago."

"Well—I haven't practiced the entire thing with the clicker."

That wasn't true. He had presented the whole thing, complete with slides and clicker, in front of a small audience at the precinct the day before his slides were due, and again to Eddie and Erin just two nights ago. She guessed he'd gone over it at least once or twice a day in between.

"Jamie, you're going to do great," she assured him. "Get out of here so I can change, and then if you want me to listen again, I will."

Jamie crossed through the two-layered door that connected their rooms directly through the shared wall. The pent up anxiety was unbearable. His mind would never let him sleep tonight unless his body gave him no choice, so he decided to go down to the hotel's fitness room. He had changed into shorts and was digging for a t-shirt when Eddie knocked and let his side of the door swing open. They had discovered earlier, to his annoyance, that his side didn't latch unless it was deadbolted.

"What are you doing?" she asked, noticing the running shoes on the floor. "I thought you wanted to practice."

"I do but I'm going to work out first. You want to come?"

"No thanks. I'm on vacation and we walked like five miles today."

"Fine." He pulled his shirt over his head. "I won't be too long. If you're still willing to listen when I get back, I'd appreciate it."

"Yeah, of course. Drink plenty of water...you've had lots of alcohol tonight."

Eddie and Jamie clearly had different definitions of _not too long_ , because it took Jamie forever to get back. Eddie went back to the hotel bar for another cocktail, realized that the wine from dinner and the margaritas had caught up to her more than she thought, and came back upstairs, but he was still gone.

By the time she finally heard him return, she had let herself get way too emotionally involved in a crappy TV movie. She turned it off after he showered and dutifully listened to his speech yet again. She'd heard the almost-finished product with minor variations fifteen times in the last month, and for two months before that he had constantly practiced smaller bits and asked for her feedback. She could probably give the speech herself by now, entirely from memory.

"So," Jamie concluded unceremoniously. "Was that okay?"

"Jamie, it was great. Tomorrow you're going to be fine."

Jamie still wasn't sure he believed her.


	4. Chapter 4

Eddie silently thanked the Powers of the Police Conference, whoever they were, that Jamie's presentation was on the first full day of the event. It was her job to be supportive, so she'd never tell him—but nervous, jumpy Jamie was driving her nuts. She didn't think she'd be able to take two more days of this if Jamie's talk was on the last day. She wanted her calm, cool, collected partner back.

It was 10:30, half an hour before Jamie went on. They sat side by side in folding chairs backstage, waiting for the session coordinator to return from her phone call. Jamie leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and Eddie rested a reassuring hand between his shoulder blades.

"Well, we have a slight change of plan," the coordinator announced.

Jamie sat up straight, frowning. Eddie removed her hand.

"What's the problem?" Jamie asked.

"Chief Meuller, your father's friend from Long Island? He woke up sick this morning. He won't be able to introduce you."

"Wh-what?" Jamie stuttered. He'd been counting on the friendly face of a man he'd known since childhood. It wasn't really a big deal but still, the news made his stomach churn even more. "Who will do it, then?"

"The morning sessions end in fifteen minutes, and I'm going to track some people down right now and see what they think..." Before she finished talking she was walking away.

"Jamie, it's not a big deal," Eddie said immediately. "It changes nothing. It's just a nightmare for them, finding a replacement this fast."

Jamie nodded, a motion that moved his entire upper body. "Yeah. Nothing different. Everything is the same. Fine."

"You!"

"Huh?" they both said, surprised to see the coordinator hurrying back towards them.

"Officer Janko, you should do it! You should introduce Officer Reagan!"

Eddie's eyes widened. "Uh, me? No, no—I don't think I could—"

"You're his partner. Anyone else would just be reading a watered-down version of the chief's remarks, but you can really personalize it. How fast can you change and get back here in blues?"

Jamie turned to look at Eddie, his eyes silently pleading with her.

"But what do I say?" Eddie asked.

"I'll give you the chief's remarks. You can just change the details. Instead of saying you've known Jamie since he was a kid, blah blah blah, say he's your partner. But your clothes! Can you change in time?"

"Yeah, if I hurry. I'll be back, Jamie." And with that, Eddie rushed out the door.

The coordinator perched on the edge of Eddie's chair, clutching her clipboard to her chest. "Okay, good, there's one crisis averted. Now, remember, like we went over this morning..."

She talked at Jamie but he didn't really listen. He had already practiced part of the speech onstage so he'd be comfortable during the real thing, and he didn't need to be reminded of details like how the cameras decided which angle to show at any given time. He just wanted Eddie to be here. She was the only one who could calm him down—which was funny, since nobody who knew his enthusiastic partner would describe her as a calming presence—and now she'd been drawn away minutes before the speech.

She was hardly gone for fifteen minutes, though during those minutes Jamie had plenty of time to wonder exactly how he'd handled all the public speaking of law school so well. He didn't remember getting this nervous back then. But he also felt the difference between the courtroom environment, where everyone had to listen to him, and getting up in front of hundreds of people and keeping them engaged for almost an hour.

"Okay, Officer Janko, here are the chief's remarks, and I've taken the liberty of adjusting them a bit. But you should add something a little more specific and personal, if you can. Read over it until we start and try not to stare at the paper too much when you're up there. Now, it's time for you to go sit down front, like we talked about."

They moved from backstage to the front row of the large auditorium. Behind them, the buzzing conversation got louder as the seats filled in. The mornings and afternoons were filled with other overlapping sessions, which attendees could select as they wanted. But there was nothing else scheduled during each day's special morning and evening presentations, so most of the conference attendees would be here.

Eddie focused on the paper in her hands and scribbled down her adjustments, but Jamie was all too aware of the crowd.

Finally the coordinator marched onstage. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, it's eleven, so let's get started with this year's first Morning Feature. Slight change from your program books—introducing our speaker today will be NYPD Officer Edit Janko."

Eddie gave Jamie's forearm one last squeeze and walked up to the podium.

"I met Officer Jamie Reagan five days after I graduated from the police academy," she began, confidently looking out over the crowd. "I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was when I found out that my training officer was the NYPD Commissioner's son...spoiler alert, I wasn't. It's kind of a lot of pressure, wondering if your TO will go to Sunday family dinner and tell your boss that you almost clipped another radio car when you whipped away from the curb on your very first call. But if Officer Reagan ever did tell our Commissioner those stories, well, he must've also told the ones that make me look good, because three and a half years later, I'm still here."

The audience softly chuckled at that.

"One of the first things I learned about Officer Reagan all those years ago, besides that he drives slower than your grandmother" –more laughter— "is that he has a way of relating to people that just forces you to trust him from the moment you meet him. That has given him a real talent for handling those tough EDP calls that most of us hate. And he also has a drive to do what's right more than anyone else I've ever met—which might be why he graduated from Harvard Law School and still ended up a beat cop."

She paused again to let the audience react.

"I could talk about all the medals and commendations my partner has earned over the years, but I'd rather tell you a little story. We took a tough call a couple years ago and met a young woman suffering from severe mental illness. Officer Reagan tried to find help for the girl through all the correct channels, but everyone, including other cops and the city mental health services, dropped the ball. Tragically, that girl felt that suicide was her only option. Officer Reagan couldn't just accept that. So he approached our commissioner about beginning a task force to help better equip the cops in our department to handle mental health crises on the street. Thanks to the research and training programs developed by this task force, the NYPD has proudly become one of the leading departments in the country when it comes to addressing the ongoing problem of mental illness in our community—and it's all because of him. So please join me in welcoming my partner, Officer Jamie Reagan!"

Jamie climbed the steps and shook Eddie's hand before she went to her seat. The polite applause died down. And then he started to speak.


	5. Chapter 5

"Officer Reagan!"

Eddie groaned as she felt Jamie turn. They were _so close_ to the door...

"Just unbelievable, seeing that kind of leadership from a patrol guy. How come you haven't been promoted yet?"

Eddie laughed politely and painted on a smile as Jamie talked to the stranger for a moment. Judging by the hat and the drawl, he was from Texas. Luckily this guy didn't hold Jamie's attention too long, unlike some of the people at the luncheon following Jamie's talk. It was a specific component of the conference schedule—giving the attendees a chance to speak to the presenters after their talks—and neither Jamie nor Eddie had anticipated that the lunch would be so taxing. They'd spent an hour and a half at a circular table, chatting with everyone who cared to approach them, and another half hour trying to get out the door after standing up.

When the man walked away, Jamie glanced at Eddie and made a beeline for the door. He could only tell the same stories so many times—he was all talked out.

"Oh my God, _finally_ ," Eddie sighed. "Next time we're bringing a mask for you so we can make an incognito escape."

"Who knew so many people would be that impressed?" Jamie mused. "When I started the task force all I really wanted was to give New York cops better tools to interact with EDPs. But it's cool that there are other departments that want to do the same thing."

"Yeah, yeah, you're the most innovative, forward-thinking beat cop to ever walk the earth," Eddie goaded, paraphrasing one of the many career cops who had stopped to praise Jamie's work with the mental health task force.

"And you're lucky enough to be my partner," Jamie teased. "Back to the hotel, or did you want to see any of the afternoon sessions?"

"Hotel. I need to get out of these clothes." She tugged at the collar of her dress uniform. "And then we should go do something. I don't want to sit still anymore."

"Something other than the conference?" Jamie clarified.

"Yeah. We're in San Diego! We should go to the zoo!"

"We can go to a zoo at home anytime we want," Jamie reminded her.

"But not this zoo! It's supposed to be the best in the world!"

Jamie shrugged. "I'd rather do something we can't do at home."

"Oh yeah? You got any ideas?" Eddie challenged.

"The aircraft carrier museum."

Eddie made a face.

"No, it's supposed to be great!" Jamie insisted. "The aircraft carrier _is_ the museum. They converted the whole ship after it was decommissioned. Danny and Linda went to it when the boys were little. He says it's awesome, and after eight years or whatever, it's got to be even better."

Eddie still looked skeptical. "Well, the zoo would probably be better if we had more time than just the afternoon, so..."

"What, are you planning to play hookie from the rest of the conference?" Jamie joked.

"Your talk is done! Dinner tomorrow is the only other event we have to go to. Wouldn't you rather _do stuff_ than sit in the convention center all weekend?"

"There are a couple sessions that look interesting," Jamie offered.

"You know what's even more interesting? Elephants."

"Aircraft carriers."

"Oh, whatever."

Back at the hotel, Jamie changed and crossed into Eddie's room as she redid her makeup.

"The ship closes at five so if we want to see all of it we should get going," he called.

"We can still go to the zoo," Eddie responded from the bathroom.

"I'm the one who got us a free trip to San Diego," Jamie said. "I get first pick of museums."

"The zoo doesn't count as a museum. The zoo isn't boring. Museums are boring."

"Museums are _cool_."

"Yeah, if you're sixty."

"Hey, zoos are cool too, if you're five," Jamie countered. He adopted an animated tone, like he was speaking to a child. "Eddie, look at the lion! What does the lion say?"

Eddie came out of the bathroom, returned her lip gloss to her purse, and slung the bag over her shoulder. "Maybe _you_ were learning animal sounds at five, Reagan, but the rest of us had those down by age two. Now come on."

* * *

A/N: Of course Jamie's speech went well...is anyone really surprised? Next, a tour guide's wrong assumptions make things interesting at the _USS Midway_ museum, and Jamie learns a little about Eddie's family history.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: This isn't my favorite chapter to be honest. I'm not thrilled with how it turned out but it's better than any other version I could come up with. Bear with me...there are some really great chapters coming in the next couple of days ;) -Sandy

* * *

"Anyway," said the sixty-something museum volunteer in his bright yellow _USS Midway_ baseball cap. "Nobody here is claustrophobic, right? How about acrophobic? Does anyone know what that is?"

"Fear of heights," Jamie murmured, meaning for only Eddie to hear.

"Ah, the good-looking young man has to impress his pretty girlfriend," the tour guide joked loudly. He winked at Jamie.

Eddie's hand flew to her mouth to hide her giggles. Before she or Jamie had the chance to correct him, he continued, "I always love to embarrass the cute young couples. Now, as I was saying, the control island is pretty high. The catwalk is about a hundred feet above the water and you'll be climbing four narrow ladders in tight quarters to get up there. So if that'll be a problem for you, there's no shame in bucking out now."

"You scared, _dear_?" Eddie whispered, suppressing a laugh.

"Oh, shut up," Jamie hissed back.

A minute later, their tour guide got the walkie-talkie message that the last group had cleared out of the aircraft carrier's flight deck control tower, or island as it was called.

The island tour, which included the flight control center, captain's area, and chart room, lasted about half an hour. Eddie played off the tour guide's mistake the entire time—hanging on Jamie's arm, asking other people to take cutesy pictures of them, and calling him _babe_ or _sweetie_ every time she spoke. To her delight he became flustered and embarrassed, having no choice but to go along with her game.

"What next, babe?" Eddie asked, grinning, when the tour ended. Jamie and his museum map had directed their entire visit, prioritizing the things that he most wanted to see—though Eddie got distracted by something else every time they crossed the main hangar deck to get to another small loop of exhibits.

"Come on, can't we quit with that now?" he whined. "We saw everything downstairs, but we haven't looked at all the airplanes on the flight deck."

"Great!" Eddie said happily, and she crossed the carrier's runway to reach the airplanes lined up along the opposite edge.

Jamie trailed her as she walked all the way around several 20th century fighter jets, taking her time looking at each before moving on to the next one.

It had been like this the entire three hours they'd been on the ship. Jamie could get the full experience of the parts he enjoyed just by seeing and listening to the audio tour on his museum-issued headset as he walked through; it didn't take a genius to figure out that the enlisted sailors' bunkrooms sucked or how much effort it took to feed the 4500-person crew each day.

Meanwhile, Eddie took her time, since she was more interested in the technical details than the lifestyle stuff. For her, it wasn't enough just to know that something _happened_ —she wanted to learn how it all worked in the era before modern technology took over. In the areas that let guests be more hands-on, like the air traffic radar room and the communications room, she lingered and played with the old-fashioned equipment. She fell behind more than once as they went through the different exhibit loops on the ship, which surprised Jamie—given her complaints about coming here, he'd expected her to rush through and leave him behind to enjoy the exhibits. Instead it was the other way around.

"Since when do you like planes so much?" he asked as she reappeared from behind an old bomber.

"I like anything from World War II," she told him.

"This ship wasn't commissioned until a week after the war ended," he reminded her.

"But there's still some World War II stuff," she said. She pointed to the plaque near the front of the plane. "They used this plane in the last couple years of the war and up through Vietnam."

"I didn't know you were a history buff."

"I'm not. It's really just World War II. It's crazy to think how recent it was, and how so many civilized, industrial nations turned into all-out war zones."

"Yeah, I guess."

"And several of my Serbian relatives were killed in the Jasenovac concentration camp," she continued. "My great grandmother and some of the great aunts and uncles from her generation. My grandma was a little kid then, so it's always fascinated me, you know? To see what she lived through."

"Whoa, I didn't know," Jamie said.

"Yeah—everyone knows that the Nazis killed Jews, Gypsies, people with disabilities—but not as many people talk about the ethnic Serbs."

"I knew about Serbs in general," he backtracked. "I meant your family. You've never mentioned it. Was your grandmother in a concentration camp?" he asked.

"Yeah, well, it doesn't exactly come up a lot—and no. She escaped from Croatia into Serbia with some of her family when the Croatian government started rounding up all the ethnic Serbs early in the war. She was too young to remember that, but she remembers moving again to escape the Nazis the next year, and she remembers going back to Serbia after the war."

"Wow. Have you been to the Holocaust Museum in DC?" Jamie asked.

"No, have you?"

"Yeah, I went once. It's really heavy stuff but if you're interested in it, you should go."

"I'd like to someday."

"Wait," Jamie said. "If you like learning about World War II, why didn't you want to come to the aircraft carrier?"

"It wasn't commissioned till _after_ the war, remember?" she mocked, nudging him with an elbow. "I didn't think there would be much about it."

"Of course there'd be some overlap, especially with the early technology," Jamie pointed out.

"Well, why'd you want to come?" Eddie asked. "You rushed right through most of it like you couldn't wait to finish."

"Danny talked it up," Jamie said. "He likes anything about military history from the last century, and when the boys were younger they both loved airplanes."

"So you admit the zoo would've been better."

"No! I really do like it. I just don't need to spend tons of time like a certain slowpoke."

"Excuse me for trying to learn something. I thought you'd understand that, Harvard."

"I did learn something—that I'm really glad I never had to live like the enlisted sailors on an aircraft carrier."

"Touché," Eddie agreed. "Hey, is that the guy who thought…?"

"Which one, him?" Jamie asked, looking at the museum volunteer Eddie indicated. "No, too old."

"We didn't actually look like a couple, did we?" Eddie wondered. "I mean before I started—" She waved her free hand back and forth between them.

"I don't know," Jamie sputtered.

"We weren't holding hands—we weren't even sticking that close to each other," Eddie continued. "Guy just had to make assumptions."

"Well, let's go back downtown and find something to eat—and even though you're not my girlfriend, I'll let you pick the place."

"Aw, you know, you're pretty good for a not-boyfriend." Eddie looped her arm through Jamie's, and they didn't separate until they were all the way off the ship.


	7. Chapter 7

Jamie's phone rang as he and Eddie slowly walked downtown, taking their time and enjoying the weather and the city—and, of course, the company.

"Hey Danny," Jamie answered.

"Hey, kid. I just got off work and I couldn't watch the online stream, but Dad and Erin saw it live and they said you did great."

"They both called me right afterwards," Jamie said. "And yeah, it went better than I thought it would."

"How bad did you think it was gonna go? For the last three months you've done nothing but write, practice, edit, rewrite…"

"Have _you_ ever had to give an hour-long speech in a two-thousand-seat auditorium?" Jamie challenged.

"Nope, and I never plan to," Danny replied. "But hey, I'm glad you did good. Dad told me the chief got sick and your partner had to take his place with the introduction."

"She did; she took over at the very last minute," Jamie confirmed. "She did a great job making me look like I deserved to be up there."

"How's that going, by the way? Hanging out with Eddie in a new city…right by the beach…fancy hotel…"

"Danny," Jamie admonished, though a glance at Eddie told him that she hadn't overheard.

"I'm just saying, kid, nobody would blame you if you let go of that famous self-control for once in your life."

"That's not why she's here," Jamie hissed, hoping Eddie still wasn't paying attention.

"Right, right—because why _wouldn't_ a cop bring his beautiful partner to a police conference?" Danny's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Still can't figure out how you managed to convince Dad."

"It's his fault he wouldn't let the task force lieutenant come," Jamie said. "And it's your fault you didn't want to take off work. You could've been here. And anyway, you're saying you wouldn't bring Baez to a work conference?"

"What?" Eddie exaggeratedly gasped. "You mean I wasn't your first choice?"

Jamie grinned at her, knowing she was joking. He had told her about first inviting a task force lieutenant and then Danny before getting to her—though he hadn't told her he had gone to Frank first to ask if it was appropriate to bring his partner.

 _Would we be having this conversation if the partner in question was Tony or Vinny instead of a pretty blonde?_ Frank had asked, which was his way of giving Jamie his approval to invite her. Jamie had been surprised, since he figured Frank would've at least warned him to consider the optics, the department rumors it would fuel…

But even if Frank picked up on it, he had not acknowledged that Jamie wasn't asking about just _any_ pretty blonde—it was _the_ pretty blonde, it was Eddie, it was the idea of being alone with her and away from the prying eyes of New York City…

"Yeah, sure, blame Dad," Danny was saying. As unbothered as Frank seemed by the idea of Jamie and Eddie attending the conference together, Danny and Erin hadn't given him a break since finding out Eddie was going. "And no, I got a wife. I'd bring her. But you? You know you wanted to take Eddie all along. She's probably with you right now, isn't she? Hi, Officer Janko!"

"Cut it out," Jamie said. "She is. What, do you expect me to leave her by herself while I go out for drinks with all of Dad's important friends?" He offered the small lie, which earned him a look from Eddie, instead of giving Danny the satisfaction of knowing that they were, in fact, going out by themselves after ditching the conference all afternoon.

"Yeah, and I'm sure all of Dad's important friends _totally_ believe that you're just partners."

"Why wouldn't they?" Jamie asked. "It's true."

"Please, with you two making eyes at each other all the time they're probably gonna call Dad and ask why they haven't gotten a wedding invitation yet."

"Shut up, Danny," Jamie groaned, but he was in too good a mood to really let the teasing bother him.

"Yeah, yeah. Look, have fun, kid. I gotta go. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Alright, Danny."

"See ya when you get back."

"Yep, see you. Bye."

Eddie was scrolling on her phone as they walked. "You feel like a bar or someplace nicer?" she asked once Jamie's call ended. "We can find anything we want around here."

"We're right on the border and you aren't craving Mexican food?"

"Oh! Good idea!" Eddie exclaimed. She went back to her phone. "Here's one with 300 five-star reviews. Are we close to Island Avenue?"

"A couple blocks that way."

They changed direction, passing a couple of impressive high-rise residential buildings as they headed for the taco place.

"I could go back to law and then maybe I could afford a one-bedroom in one of these places," Jamie said.

"Yeah, imagine those headlines. _World's most impressive beat cop abandons NYPD after giving speech about how great he is._ "

"Okay, that's not what it was about. And I don't think that would make the newspapers."

"Maybe not what it was _actually_ about, but it's what everyone thought of you," Eddie pointed out. "And you're the PC's kid, Jamie. Some nosy reporter in the city would find out and try to make it into a big scandal."

"And that would be my dad's problem, because I'd be living it up in my new beachfront condo." He looked up at the shiny all-glass condo community on their left.

"You could never do it," Eddie said. "Move across the country away from your whole family? You've got too much in New York to just leave it all behind."

"Yeah, and even if I had a million-dollar house, I don't think I could ever be happy if I wasn't a cop," he continued—though the thought floating through his head at that moment was _I don't know if I could ever be happy if I wasn't with you._


	8. Chapter 8

"You told her I have a giant lion tattoo on my _ass_?"

"She wasn't going to leave you alone!" Eddie cried. "Desperate times, desperate measures, Reagan!"

"Desperate times?"

"Yeah—can't have you leaving the bar with some sketchy California chick. What if she's a serial killer? What if she takes you to Mexico and buries you in the desert and I never see you again?" She was drunk enough to laugh at her own absurdity now that they'd left the bar, the woman in question, and the fifteen other lady cops who'd recognized Jamie and tried to come on to him.

"She was a _cop_ from _Oregon_ ," Jamie stressed, though he too had had enough to drink to find this funny.

Eddie shook her head. "Serial killer," she declared.

"You were just jealous that for once, I got more attention than you did," he concluded.

"Please. You had no idea how to handle yourself in there. At home there isn't a single lady cop who'd go for the PC's son, Reagan. You're all out of practice."

"Not a _single_ one?" Jamie pressed.

She turned and walked sideways so she could talk to his face. Her coordination was just impaired enough that she tripped over her own feet as she sidestepped and she had to grab onto Jamie's arm for balance. "Not even one," she said, her face as close to his ear as their height difference would allow.

He felt her warm breath against his neck but the next second she was gone, bouncing ahead of him on the sidewalk.

After watching her for a minute, he sped up to catch her. Wrapping a hand around her elbow, he pulled her back into step with him before draping his arm across her shoulders. He squeezed her against his side, and even when he brought his arm back down she stayed close enough that they were touching.

"Okay, but really," Jamie said, "what if that woman is turned on by ass tattoos?"

Eddie tried to suppress her smile into a more mischievous expression, but she couldn't quite make it work. "That's why it was a _brand-new_ tattoo. You can only have so much fun if your butt cheeks are that sore." She reached back and smacked Jamie's ass, ducking away from him before he could react.

"Not sure what hotel you're going to, but ours is this way," Jamie called as she practically skipped around the corner.

"Knew that!" she laughed, returning to his side as they waited for the light to change.

He stuck his elbow out and gave her a light nudge, enough to sway her upper body without knocking her off balance. "You did not."

"Okay—we have been here for _one day_ , so excuse me if I haven't memorized the streets yet."

The orange hand across the street turned into a blue human silhouette. Jamie and Eddie stepped into the crosswalk. "You'd be so lost if I wasn't here—I'm not the one who'd end up buried in the Mexico desert, _you_ are."

"Really _you_ would be lost without _me_. You'd be sitting all lonely in your hotel room, nothing to do, not having fun…"

"I would find something to do," he argued. "And maybe I wouldn't be lonely—some wingman you are, telling women about my ass tattoo."

"Oh, you would _so_ be lonely," Eddie insisted. "Why do they like you? Because of your speech. Why'd they like your speech? Because of me at the beginning."

"Because of you, huh?"

"Yes, because of me! I saw what that chief was going to say. It would've put the whole room to sleep. Mine was way better."

"Chief Meuller has known me my whole life. He's been friends with my dad forever. He would've done fine!"

"No, it was awful!" Eddie took on a deep, monotonous voice. " _Officer Jameson Reagan is a seven-year veteran of the NYPD. He is the youngest son of Commissioner Frank Reagan. Here is a boring list of all his medals. Here's another boring list of every unofficial compliment that any superior officer has ever given him_."

"No, couldn't have been that bad," Jamie chuckled.

"It was! I will show you the paper of what he was going to say!"

Jamie looked up and saw an older couple walking in the opposite direction—a member of the conference organizational board and his wife. The couple, who happened to know Frank well, had been at Jamie and Eddie's table for dinner the night before. Jamie gathered himself and shifted sideways, leaving a more respectable space between himself and his partner as they walked.

"Officer Reagan," the man said, nodding as they passed each other. "Officer Janko."

"Sir," Jamie replied stoically.

Eddie watched the couple over her shoulder. As soon as they were out of earshot, she collapsed against Jamie's arm in a fit of giggles.

He had to step sideways to absorb the impact without losing his balance. "What?"

"That was so weird! That guy knows your dad!"

"Let's get inside before we run into anyone else he knows."

"Maybe he's tailing us!" Eddie gasped.

"Huh?"

"Didn't he have someone follow your sister for her prom? He probably has someone watching us here." She stopped walking and looked around.

"He does _not_. Don't be ridiculous." Jamie grabbed her forearm to pull her along behind him, and his hand naturally slid down, down—until it held hers.


	9. Chapter 9

Eddie hardly processed anything except her hand in Jamie's—not the wrongness, not the risk of running into someone else who could rat them out, not where all this was going.

But suddenly the hotel lobby doors slid open in front of them, and she pulled her hand away. Despite the late hour the lobby was full of cops, and she remembered that she and Jamie weren't actually the only two people in the world.

In the elevator, though, they found themselves alone again. Jamie hit the button and leaned back against the corner. Eddie closed the gap between them in one stride and pressed herself against him.

His body stiffened in surprise before he relaxed, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer. She inhaled his scent, felt his face drop against the top of her head, his breath in her hair as the elevator began to rise—

"I still want to see that paper," he murmured.

She picked up her head and craned back to frown at him. "What?"

"The chief's thing. I need proof that it really was _that_ bad."

Eddie managed to bring her hands up between their bodies, and she pushed off his chest. "Sometimes you really need to know when to shut up."

They'd reached their floor. Eddie backed out of the elevator and spun around to lead the way to their rooms. She stood to the side while Jamie opened his door, and she followed him in.

Jamie grabbed the remote from the top of the dresser and toed off his shoes. When he turned around, he saw Eddie heading towards the open door to her own room.

"Where are you going?" he whined. He slid onto the bed and patted the spot next to him as he turned on the TV.

"Jamie Reagan!" Eddie gasped in mock surprise.

She took a step closer to the bed and Jamie leaned over, grabbed her arm, and pulled her down. She landed half on top of him, laughing as he scooted back against the headboard.

Eddie moved up next to him and settled against his side. The commercial break ended, revealing the show that was on—"Hey, this movie's a classic!" Jamie said, his tone light and flippant.

Eddie rolled halfway over so she could rest an elbow on Jamie's chest and push herself up to face him. " _Jamie_."

He couldn't even try to pretend any longer that the TV was more interesting. "What?" he said, and his face relaxed into a goofy, lopsided grin as his eyes jumped back and forth between her eyes and her lips—her lips—

Jamie's hand—the one that wasn't pinned underneath Eddie—slid under her hair to find the bare skin at the back of her neck. But he didn't really need to pull her down to meet him; her fingers toyed with the collar of his t-shirt as their lips met in a soft kiss.

They were gentle and hungry at the same time. Eddie shifted so more of her weight was on top of Jamie, freeing his hands to roam up and down her back, her sides…

Breathlessly they devoured each other, neither willing to be the first one to pull back. They had kept up their walls of professionalism and partnership and friendship for so long—they both deserved to finally release the tension that had building since that kiss in Jamie's apartment, or really, that had been piling up for nearly four years. Her hands cupped his face, came down to grab desperate fistfuls of his shirt, and she let out a soft moan as he trailed hot kisses across her jaw to her earlobe.

And then Eddie felt Jamie's hands slip under her loose tank top, and his fingers pressed forcefully into the skin of her back just below her bra, and it was like she'd been pulled back to reality.

She wanted this. She really, _really_ wanted this. But not this way. For one thing, they were both drunk. Sure, drunken words—or, well, actions—reflect sober thoughts as they say, and maybe their sober selves had been a little too slow acting on those feelings. Or a _lot_ too slow. But waiting a little longer wouldn't kill them—and in the back of her head she knew they should wait, at least until they were both of sound enough mind to fully grasp the changes this would bring before taking the leap.

But, aside from all that, all the annoying logic and caution and other stuff that was usually Jamie's department—Eddie just wanted to make Jamie work for it. For so long she'd been the initiator, always the first to act when the feelings they'd both pushed down for so many years bubbled back to the surface. For the last few weeks, though, since their coworkers' partnership-turned-relationship came to light, she had constantly teased Jamie right up to the line before coyly yanking him back.

After all that, she couldn't just give in this easily. What fun would that be? Now that she'd given him this last push, it was time for him to figure out how to follow through.

Eddie broke the kiss and untangled her hands from Jamie's short hair, bringing them to rest on his chest. His eyes opened and his brow furrowed the tiniest bit as he searched her face to see why she stopped.

With a grin she dropped one last peck on his lips and rolled away from him. "Not tonight, lambchop."

"What?" Jamie said, dazed. He pushed himself up on one elbow and watched her steady herself on her feet.

She reached the door between their rooms and turned around, teasing Jamie with full view of her cleavage as she leaned forward against the doorframe.

"Can't have too much fun," she crooned. "Wouldn't want to hurt that new ass tattoo of yours." She paused, enjoying one last look at Jamie's flushed, confused face. "Tomorrow, I think we should go to the zoo. Goodnight." And with a wink, she closed the door behind her.

* * *

A/N: still two more nights in San Diego...


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Might start doing 2 chapters a day because I'd like to have this all wrapped up by Friday's new episode (finally!). Thanks for reading and as always, let me know what you think! -Sandy

* * *

"Are you _kidding_ me?"

He was serious, but in that moment he almost gave up on his plans for the day and told her that this was a joke. His head pounded, an unfortunate side effect of the night before, and he really didn't feel like fighting her.

No. They _were_ still here for the conference, even if his biggest obligation was behind him.

"This afternoon we'll do something," he promised. "But we can't show up to dinner tonight having skipped the whole day—at least, _I_ can't. You don't have to come, but I think I better go to the featured talk so there's something to talk about tonight."

"Just wing it," Eddie begged. "Please? I did yesterday—in front of _two thousand people_ , might I add."

"People will probably ask us specifically what we thought of the talk—I can't just wing that," Jamie said. "And if you can, I'll be really impressed."

"Maybe they'll all just talk more about _your_ speech," Eddie offered. "We were both there for that one."

"No—seriously, Eddie, we're here for the conference so we should at least do _some_ conference stuff."

"Please?"

Jamie had to look away; she knew what her puppy-dog face did to him. "We stay to the end of the featured talk," he said, hoping his voice didn't give away just how close he was to caving. "We can skip the lunch after. We'll do whatever you want this afternoon and we'll go down to the hotel ballroom for the banquet at six."

Eddie scowled. "Fine. We'll stay till the end of the talk. Then we are _going_ to the _zoo_." And with that, she turned Jamie around by the shoulders and shoved him back into his own room.

* * *

Four hours later, however, Jamie and Eddie found themselves right back in the convention center's enormous showroom-turned-cafeteria, handing over meal tickets to cover their premade catered subs.

They'd attended six short morning sessions and taken two snack breaks before the featured talk. But when they arrived in the auditorium, Jamie made the mistake of joining two board members who waved them over. After the talk, before Jamie even knew what was happening, the board members invited them to join their table at the lunch—and they hadn't been able to escape.

One of the board members, a portly man who'd been particularly impressed with Jamie's talk the day before, rambled amicably as they proceeded along the condiment bar. Eddie and Jamie smiled and nodded until the man turned away to lead them all to their table. Jamie glanced back at Eddie, who shot him a death glare in return.

"I'm going to kill you," she muttered through gritted teeth.

Jamie just shrugged and mouthed _sorry_.

This lunch wasn't as bad as the one the day before, given that Jamie wasn't the center of attention this time. But still, it seemed like they'd never get away. Eddie divided the time in her head, estimating how long they'd have at the zoo as the moments ticked by. They'd have to leave the zoo a few minutes before its 5pm closing to make it back to the hotel in time to get ready for tonight's fancy banquet, and now it was edging closer and closer to one o'clock.

There wouldn't be enough time.

* * *

"I thought you wanted to go to the zoo."

"I did—I do. But I told you—we need a _long_ time there. A couple hours isn't enough. We can go tomorrow," she said. "Unless you're going to make me go back to the stupid convention tomorrow, too."

"No, I don't think we need to," Jamie said.

"Good. Then Coronado Beach today and zoo tomorrow. Hurry up and change."

* * *

The ferry to Coronado Island left from the pier right behind the convention center, and it was a short ride across the bay. Jamie and Eddie walked quickly to the other side of the narrow island, and not long after leaving the ferry they arrived at the beach.

"Okay, you're still not off the hook for the zoo," Eddie told Jamie. "But this is pretty damn good too."

Jamie flicked his eyebrows once and smiled at her. "Well, come on, shorty."

It was a warm Saturday and the beach was crowded with families. Still, it wasn't hard to find an open spot to lay the towels they'd brought from their hotel rooms.

Eddie dug their books out of her tote bag and handed one to Jamie. "Maybe you should reconsider that whole lawyer-with-a-fancy-house thing," she said. "I'd totally come visit you if you lived so close to here."

"You could move here too," he said. "Good NYPD cops can get jobs in any department in the country. I'll even write you a good recommendation as your TO."

"Oh, you would, would you?"

Jamie opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. His eyes were glued to Eddie as she absently peeled off her loose thigh-length cover-up. She'd seen him nearly naked or at least shirtless more times than he could count, but of course he'd never seen her in any state less than fully clothed. It crossed his mind that if he had seen her like this, her gorgeous body on display in a turquoise patterned bikini, he never would've let her walk out of his room last night.

Oblivious to him, Eddie turned halfway around and tucked the gauzy material into her bag. Straightening up, she finally noticed his expression. "Catching some flies in that mouth, Reagan?"

Jamie abruptly snapped his mouth shut and he sputtered for words, unable to come up with a witty comeback.

"Don't look too long," she teased. "I'm so white it'll blind you. But that's what beaches are for, getting a tan…" She dropped to her knees on the edge of her towel and stretched out on her stomach with her book in front of her face.

Finally able to grasp some tiny bit of composure, Jamie stripped his shirt off and mirrored Eddie's position on his own towel. He stayed still and forced himself to keep his eyes on his book, but next to him Eddie was restless. She flipped between her back and her stomach every couple of minutes, and even when she was settled in one spot she kept moving—on her stomach she kicked her feet back and forth in the air, and on her back she bent her knees up and dug her feet around in the sand beyond the edge of her towel.

Finally she sat up and tucked her book back into her tote bag. "I'm going swimming, Reagan," she announced. "You coming?"

"Yeah, in a second."

" _In a second_ like now, or _in a second_ like five minutes?"

"In a second," he repeated. He fanned the pages of his John Steinbeck novel with his thumb. "Four pages left in the chapter."

"Oh, well, you just take your time there, buddy. No rush at all."

She leaned down and messed up his hair as she stepped past him. He couldn't help but watch her walk away, fascinated by the way her heels kicked up sand with each step and how the sun glinted off the metallic beads hanging off the ties at the hips of her bikini bottoms and, well, everything about her.

She waded into waist-deep water and gracefully dove under a wave. When she came up she impatiently raked the loose strands hair out of her eyes, and before she could even finish tightening her ponytail she was jumping backwards into another swell, as animated as the group of children swimming nearby.

God, why had he wasted so much time thinking that he couldn't live without the little moments at work? If giving up their partnership meant he could see her like this every day, raw exuberance uninhibited by the professionalism expected of those in uniform, then it was more than worth it.

He was fooling himself if he thought he'd be able to read while Eddie played in the water two hundred feet away. He hopped to his feet and left his book in Eddie's bag, never taking his eyes off her as she bobbed over the—

"Oh my God! Jamie!"

Jamie tore his eyes away from Eddie, and for the second time in half an hour his jaw hit the ground.


	11. Chapter 11

Jamie peered down at the slender brunette; the sun was behind her, darkening her face so that in his distracted state he needed a moment to squint her into focus.

"Whoa—Dana?"

"Hi!" She leaned forward to pull him into an awkward one-armed hug, encumbered by the dark-haired toddler on her hip. Jamie glanced at the little girl as they separated again; she was cute, in a long-sleeved rash guard and comical miniature trendy sunglasses.

"How—how are you?" Jamie stuttered. He hadn't seen Dana in years, not since her trip to New York for the Bar Association dinner soon after he started riding with Eddie. They had kept in touch for a while after that, just as they had ever since they originally reunited before Dana moved across the country. But before long it had died out. Now that he thought about it, Jamie wasn't sure who was more responsible for that—and he also realized that he didn't care.

"I'm great. You? What brings you all the way to California?"

"Um, there's a police conference this weekend," he explained. "I thought you were still up in LA!"

"Oh, I am, but my best friend's mom and dad live in Chula Vista and her husband is gone on business, so she and I brought her kids down for the weekend."

Suddenly the baby made a lot more sense. He took the child's hand and gently shook her arm, making her giggle. "Oh, so this is—she isn't—"

"Wh—oh, no, no, she's not mine!" Dana laughed. "I'm just borrowing her while her mommy takes the big kids over to the bathroom. Trust me, I'm a _long_ way from kids myself—I need to find a boyfriend first. So. How long are you in town?"

"Till Monday morning," he answered.

"Aw, lucky you. We've got to leave tomorrow afternoon, don't we, sweetie?" She bounced the baby and tickled her ribs before looking back at Jamie. "But if you're free tonight, you know—the kids go to bed early, and I'd love to catch up, maybe grab a drink?"

"Actually, Dana, there's a dinner tonight for the conference—and I'm here with someone."

Her eyes widened the tiniest bit. "Oh, you are? Good for you, Jamie! I didn't know you were dating anyone!"

"Yeah, we haven't kept up with each other too well," he said sheepishly, too polite to correct her assumption.

"Who is she?" Dana asked. She'd regained her composure and now she grinned expectantly. "Is it serious?"

"Um, well, I think it could be." It wasn't a lie.

"Is she here?" Dana nervously peeked over both her shoulders like she was afraid of being caught talking to him.

"She's over there, in the water, and I was just about to—"

Dana gasped and her face morphed into a scandalized smirk. "Jamie Reagan! Is that—isn't that the girl you work with? What's her name—Emma? I was right! I _knew_ you liked her! So, how long?"

"Eddie," Jamie said, avoiding her question.

"And how many times did you tell me it wasn't _like that_ with her?" She laughed and playfully slapped his arm. "I've always been able to see right through you."

"Back then it wasn't," Jamie insisted, though if he remembered the timing right, his first kiss with Eddie hadn't happened too long after Dana's last visit.

"You may not have known it, but trust me Jamie, it _was_ like that. I knew it all along! Well, good for you! Congratulations. That's really great. I hope you're happy together," she rambled with a genuine smile. "You go on and swim with her—and enjoy the rest of your conference. I'll see you later, okay? Don't be a stranger."

"I won't. Good to see you, Dana."

She flashed him one last pearly white smile, helped the baby wave, and walked away.

* * *

 _Four pages my ass_ , Eddie silently complained. She scanned the beach between waves, trying to find her and Jamie's little spot among all the colorful umbrellas and beach chairs and people. She thought he'd have caught up to her by now.

She finally located the unique solid orange umbrella that served as her landmark and shifted her eyes to the left, where she knew their towels were spread on the ground even though she couldn't see them from so far away. Ugh, if Jamie was still reading that damn book—

No, there he was in his solid blue swim trunks, standing up—talking? Who was that? All Eddie could tell was that she was a woman. Most of her upper body, including her face, was obscured by the little kid she balanced on her hip. But after a moment she transferred the kid to her other arm, giving Eddie a better view. She squinted and managed to keep her eyes on them as several swells gently lifted her off the sand. Was her mind playing tricks on her, or did that girl look familiar? She was too far away to know for sure, and even if Eddie did know her she couldn't place her.

Before Eddie had too long to think about it, the woman with the baby moved on. Eddie's eyes followed her until she blended into the beach, too small to tell apart from the rest of the tiny people-dots.

She hadn't looked back at Jamie at all, so she didn't see him make his way into the chilly water and sneak around behind her, until—

She shrieked and recoiled as she felt two firm pokes, one on either side of her waist. When she twisted around she saw Jamie laughing as he wiped a hand down his face and shook the excess water off his head.

"Reagan!" she shouted.

He jumped sideways to dodge the large splash of water she pushed his way. "The water's freezing!" he complained. "How have you stayed out here so long?"

"It's not bad once you get used to it—which I've had plenty of time to do while I waited for you, _slowpoke_."

"Yeah, sorry, I ran into someone." He folded his arms over his chest and tried not to visibly shiver.

"I saw," Eddie smirked. "Someone you know? Or were you just trying to find yourself a prettier date for dinner?"

"Never," Jamie scoffed. "Just said hi to an old law school classmate."

At that comment it dawned on Eddie why the woman had looked sort of familiar. "Oh my God, was that the girl—the one from a couple years ago, that fancy dinner—?"

"I believe you called it a lawyer shindig, and yeah, it was her."

"Yeah? What'd you guys talk about?" Eddie tried to keep her tone light but it was hard to hide the spike of jealousy from her voice. She'd been possessive of Jamie even back then—that lawyer thing was really the incident that made her start to realize her feelings for him weren't entirely platonic—and the thought that this girl might draw him back in made her stomach clench.

"Oh, nothing much," Jamie said vaguely. "Just that I've got a date tonight with a girl who's way more important to me than Dana ever was."

Eddie had to bite her lip for a second to keep from breaking into a grin. "Oh yeah? Who's that, Reagan? Anybody I know?"

"You're impossible, Janko," Jamie laughed, and before Eddie had a chance to run he dropped his shoulder and lunged forward, tackling her into an oncoming wave.

"Jamie!" Eddie sputtered through her laughs when they resurfaced.

Jamie untangled his arms from around her and floated backwards, raising his hands and wagging his fingers towards his chest. "That's two to nothing. You're off your game today."

"Oh, please." More hair had come loose from her ponytail and she pushed it away from her face. Suddenly she gasped and pointed at the open ocean over Jamie's shoulder. "Hey, look out!"

Jamie spun in place, expecting to meet a wave face-first. Instead he stumbled forward through flat water as Eddie leaped onto his back. He regained his balance and her forearms released their desperate chokehold on his neck. Her hands felt like fire as they trailed partway down his chest, and instinctively his own looped underneath her thighs to hold her up.

"Two to one, Reagan," she hissed into his ear. Her hands, flat against his chest, continued to tease him.

Then she pinched the skin on the left side of his ribcage, _hard_ , and when he doubled over towards that side she used her entire bodyweight to push him underwater. He caught her ankle on the way down but she managed to balance herself on the other foot as he resurfaced.

She stuck her tongue out and yanked her foot back. "And now it's all tied up!"


	12. Chapter 12

Eddie pursed her lips in irritation at the five dresses on her bed. The simple black one wasn't her favorite, so she tossed it to the side with the dress she'd worn to the steakhouse the other night—but that still left her with four to choose from.

In a huff she grabbed the solid hunter green one. Above-knee length and classy, it was probably more appropriate for tonight's banquet than any of the other options. It hugged her curves and she loved the elaborate detail of all the thin crisscrossed straps at the top—the feature that had convinced her to buy this otherwise simple dress in the first place.

She shimmied her way into it and smoothed out the fabric before nudging Jamie's door open with one bare foot.

Jamie stood in his bathroom doorway, one towel around his waist as he rubbed a second one through his hair. Seeing Eddie, he froze with his hands still on his head and half a towel draped over his face.

She tried not to laugh—or to make it _too_ obvious that she was checking him out, even after spending several hours with shirtless Jamie on the beach. "Did you really _just_ get out of the shower?"

"It'll take me three minutes to get dressed," he defended. He pulled the towel off his head and tossed it onto the foot of the bed as he took in the sight of her, hair already done in soft waves on her shoulders and eyes gleaming up from beneath mascara'd lashes.

"Well then take a second to zip me up, would you?"

She slowly turned in place. Jamie was glad she couldn't see him as his eyebrows flew up and he blinked several times, enthralled by the V of exposed skin. He stepped over to her and his fingers fumbled with the bottom of the zipper at the small of her back. Finally he managed to coordinate one hand on the zipper and one tugging at the dress to get enough resistance to draw it closed.

This was exactly the _opposite_ of what he wanted to do when it came to Eddie's clothes.

"Thanks," she said, feeling the fabric tighten around her body. She took her arms away from her chest now that she wasn't at risk of the dress falling open.

"Yep," he croaked.

She shot him a coquettish smile over one shoulder. "You better hurry up, Reagan. Wouldn't want to be late."

He stood anchored in place for a long moment after she kicked her side of the door closed, wondering how the hell he was going to get through the next several hours maintaining the façade that she was _just_ his partner when the untruth of that statement forced itself closer and closer to the surface with each passing second.

* * *

Eddie was in complete control, and she knew it.

As she mingled breezily over hors d'oeuvres outside the hotel ballroom she seemed to have little attention to spare for Jamie as he trailed right behind her, other than the occasional quick, alluring over-the-shoulder smile as they floated between conversations. She drove him crazy—it was like she couldn't have cared less that he was there, and then _bam_ , out of nowhere she'd flash a look meant only for him before it just as quickly disappeared.

He allowed himself to place a soft guiding hand on her back as they filed into the ballroom—an innocent gesture that any gentleman would offer his date, partner or not. As they reached their round table she spun ever so slightly towards him to call his attention to their tablemates and he took the chance to press his fingertips into the flesh of her waist. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips into a smirk before turning away from him to take her seat.

Through the first two courses of dinner Jamie managed to engage in polite conversation as a commander from Chicago PD loudly entertained their table. He shot Eddie an _I-told-you-so_ grin as the topic of that morning's featured talk came up and she playfully sneered in response.

The waiters marched through to clear the main course as the emcee approached the podium on the low stage at the front of the ballroom. "As we move into dessert," she said, "we'll also be moving along to tonight's speaker. We know you've all been listening to a whole lot of talk this weekend, more than a roomful of cops can probably deal with, so we'll keep things nice and short so we can keep going with our evening. We wouldn't want to make Deputy Superintendent Foakley wait any longer than necessary to show off those legendary New Orleans dance moves."

The dinner speaker's introducer traipsed onto the stage. Eddie scooted her chair to the left, closer to Jamie, apparently to get a better angle to see the speaker. At first the move seemed unremarkable enough; Eddie glanced up at the speaker between bites of her red velvet cake as Jamie enjoyed his cheesecake. Soon enough, the waiters tiptoed around to collect the remaining dishware and refill coffee mugs.

And then there was a hand on Jamie's right knee, hidden beneath the long tablecloth.

He looked at Eddie and he thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch as she stared unwaveringly at the speaker. It took all he had not to squirm at the heat radiating through his body from that spot.

So slowly that he almost didn't notice at first, she began to slide her hand up his thigh. He could hardly breathe. Under the guise of adjusting his napkin he dipped one hand under the tablecloth and grasped her wrist. He squeezed the plane of her palm twice between his thumb and forefinger before releasing her hand off to the side. She didn't react, but thirty seconds later her hand was once again resting against his leg.

He could feel his last shreds of sanity slipping away.

It turned into a secret game of chicken. Each time he brushed away her hand it came back almost immediately, higher on his leg. So after four or five dodges he just stopped responding. He set his jaw and focused intently on the speaker, who was rambling on about the honor and duty of police work, to ward off the physical effects of her touch. To fish a reaction out of him she drummed her fingers lightly and then, when he once again stopped squirming under the table, she flattened her palm against the middle of his thigh and grabbed a handful of flesh through the rough fabric of his dress uniform.

Abruptly the ballroom broke into polite applause. Her hand retracted from his leg as she joined in. He exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. The worst, he hoped, was over.

* * *

A/N: So much teasing...I don't think poor Jamie could take much more!


	13. Chapter 13

The worst was _not_ over.

Jamie knew there would be dancing at the distinguished guests' dinner; it was right there in the invite he'd received with the packet of paperwork when he agreed to be a featured speaker. But somehow it had slipped from his preoccupied mind that he would be expected to dance with Eddie.

They'd danced before—after that fiasco of a wedding, when he fervently avoided the dance floor until he was punching a man on it, he'd made it up to her by meeting her at a lounge where they'd be anonymous. No other cops, no nosy scandal-sniffers—just them. They had held each other close and gotten lost together in what Jamie considered one of the best moments he'd ever shared with her.

There was no such anonymity here.

"Jamie, let's go," she beamed when the emcee announced that the floor was open. "Dance with me!"

Unable to turn her down, he took her hand and they joined the other couples flooding onto the floor. Most were much older; men in highly decorated dress uniforms comfortably swayed with their wives to the slow opening song. They all seemed fully absorbed in each other and the music, but still Jamie was vividly aware of all the potentially judging eyes in the room. So as they found a spot and folded to meet each other, Jamie carefully held Eddie at a small distance.

"You were getting really close to dangerous territory over there, Officer Janko," he murmured as their hands intertwined.

She flattened her other hand against his shoulder blade. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Officer Reagan," she replied. In her heels her eyes were almost level with his.

"Oh, I think you do. In fact, that was bordering on criminal."

"Was it?" she purred, inching closer despite his stiff hand on the side of her waist to maintain the space between them. "What, are you going to cuff me? Carry me away and punish me?"

He felt himself blush and he sighed with relief that nobody could hear them over the music. She grinned, always delighted to knock down his unshakable exterior. That exterior had been wobblier than usual since they arrived in San Diego and she loved it.

"You wish," he finally mumbled, easing himself backwards to restore the gap between their chests.

"That's too bad, because you know," she said, meeting his eyes, "I've really been feeling _stuck_ at work lately. Stagnant. I think it might be time for a change of pace, you know? See what options might open up for me if I got a new partner."

"That so?" Jamie arched an eyebrow. "What kind of options are we talking about here? Career options? Because I know a guy with a hook at One PP."

"Actually, I'm not sure that'll do me much good. See, I've been partnered with a guy with a pretty big hook ever since my first day on the job, and he doesn't seem that open to using it." She brushed her hair behind her ear before replacing her hand on Jamie's shoulder.

"Maybe he's just too honest."

"Maybe that's why he needs a new partner."

Jamie dropped the game. "You serious?"

Eddie shrugged. He still wasn't giving her enough. She wanted confirmation that he really was ready to stop dancing around this, dancing around _them_ —no pun intended—and make the changes they both knew they'd need to make if this was going to go anywhere. "Are _you_?"

Jamie smiled softly but didn't answer. He should've known that everything would come to a head on this trip. He'd been telling himself for months, maybe even years, that he was waiting for her to decide she was ready. Well, here that was. And despite his musings from last night and from their beach trip earlier, the idea of spending twelve hours a day in a car with someone else—and _Eddie_ spending twelve hours a day in a car with someone else—now brought a twinge of sadness.

No. It wasn't fair to either of them to keep this up, and as he'd concluded earlier, what they'd gain would far outweigh what they'd be giving up.

"I think I could be, yeah," he offered, but he thought Eddie might not have heard him as the slow song gave way to a faster one in an awkward overlapping transition. It reminded him of the college kids who'd come back to DJ high school dances, pretending they were experts at mixing and song selection when everyone knew they were awful.

Eddie drew her hands back and started to move in time to the faster music. Jamie stayed even though he hated this kind of dancing—if he couldn't be temple to temple with Eddie then he really wasn't interested. But she was just having too much fun for him to take his eyes off her. He broke into a couple of ridiculous dance moves—sprinkler, grocery shopping and an awful running man before rounding out his performance with a rendition of Elaine's thumb dance from _Seinfeld_ that had Eddie doubling over with giggles at the end of the song.

As another unpleasant transition brought on the next song she grabbed his wrist and tugged him off the dance floor. "Gotta get you out of there before you jab someone's eye out, _Elaine_ ," she laughed.

"Hey, you're lucky I went out there at all."

She smiled. "What's the matter, Reagan? Wrong place, wrong time?"

"Uh, _yeah_ ," he said incredulously, and then he lowered his voice. "I prefer a little more _intimate_ setting when I dance is all."

Eddie's eyes lingered on his face and he felt a rush of heat come over his cheeks under her gaze. "That so," she said flatly, as if he'd just told her it would be partly cloudy tomorrow. "Well—I need a drink."

She skated across the room to their table to take a sip of water. They ended up caught in a string of conversations with other guests that lasted through several songs, and then a fifty-something chief from somewhere in the Midwest asked Eddie for a dance when his own wife insisted she needed a longer break. Eddie graciously accepted with one last eyebrow flick at Jamie and his eyes followed her as they began stepping in a slow circle on the dance floor.

* * *

A/N: If you don't know about the "Elaine Thumb Dance" from _Seinfeld_ then go look it up on Youtube _right now_ and imagine Jamie doing that in the middle of the dance floor with a bunch of middle-aged couples just to make Eddie laugh. I'm still laughing at the mental image, haha.

Next: Unfortunately for Jamie and Eddie, Frank's friend Chief Meuller is feeling better and he wants to make up for missing Jamie's speech.


	14. Chapter 14

"Well, my goodness, Jamie Reagan!"

Jamie gave a small shake of the head to clear his mind as he looked away from the dance floor, where Eddie and her older dance partner were chatting over the last few bars of the song, to the person saying his name.

"Chief Meuller!" he exclaimed, shaking the older man's hand. "Didn't think you'd be here! Word is you were pretty sick."

"Oh, one of those quick little bugs. Felt awful yesterday, couldn't leave the hotel room, but woke up today good as new," the chief chuckled.

"Well, that's good to hear. Too bad that you couldn't be there for my speech, though."

"Yeah, I'm sorry I missed it. I slept through the beginning but I saw the last ten minutes on the livestream and I see what your dad's been saying all these years—you really are one of New York's finest."

"Thank you. I appreciate that, sir."

"Now I just hope that whatever clown they got to replace me did you justice." With a grin the chief clapped a jovial hand against Jamie's upper arm.

"I think it turned out alright," Jamie laughed.

"What turned out alright?"

Jamie and the chief's wife angled their bodies to let Eddie join the conversation. She slipped a hand loosely around the inside of Jamie's elbow.

"Jamie, your dad didn't tell me you had yourself a lady friend," Meuller grinned.

"Oh, ah—this is actually my partner, Eddie Janko. Eddie, Chief Meuller and his wife, Elizabeth."

Eddie shook their hands with a smile.

"Excuse me, excuse me," the chief backpedaled, offering an awkward laugh. "You know, I made the same mistake earlier—didn't realize a woman at our dinner table was an officer. They should require all you to wear your blues, same as us—make things easier on everybody."

"But it's so much more fun to dress up," Eddie replied happily. The only women who'd worn uniforms to the banquet were the three who had speaking roles in the evening's program; otherwise, it was difficult to tell the female cops apart from the civilian women in the room.

"Eddie was the one to take over for your intro," Jamie told the chief.

"Some pretty big shoes to fill—hope it wasn't too much pressure," Meuller chuckled.

"Oh, I think I managed."

"So, listen," the chief continued. "You two got any plans for tomorrow?"

"Well, um, we were just going to—" Jamie stuttered. He was suddenly very aware of Eddie's hand on his arm. He wasn't sure if it was wise to give away that they planned to take the Trolley to the zoo after breakfast and stay there as long as Eddie wanted.

"Now, don't tell me you're going to waste any more of your time in that damn convention center. I owe you, both of you, for me bowing out yesterday. Tell me, Jamie, you're still into cars, aren't you? Now, don't you tell your dad, but Elizabeth and I are planning to skip the whole day tomorrow and head up to the automotive museum. Why don't you both join us?"

Eddie's eyes widened and she blinked at Jamie several times. He grimaced at her and turned back to the chief. "You know, Chief, thanks for the invite but really, we'd like to—"

"No, no, I insist! It's supposed to be really great. Car guy like you will love it. Listen, we'll get a late start, meet you in the hotel lobby at, say, ten thirty? Go on up there, see everything, and then I'll treat you both to lunch afterwards. What do you say?"

 _No_ , Jamie's insides screamed. _No, no, no!_ But what came out of his mouth was, "Uh, yeah, um, we'd love to."

"Great! Looking forward to it!" the chief said, and with another slap of Jamie's arm he and his wife moved away.

"The _car_ _museum_?" Eddie growled.

Jamie winced, bringing his arms up like he expected a physical blow. "I'm sorry—I'm sorry, how could I say no?"

"Jamie, it's our last day! _Please_ get us out of it," she begged.

"I will—I'll try," he promised. "Dance with me?"

She nodded and let him take her hand to lead her back to the dance floor, but all her enthusiasm had deflated. Jamie was a boy scout. He wouldn't be able to talk their way out of it, either with the truth or a lie, and she'd have to spend her zoo day in a stupid car museum with an old man who was best friends with her boss. Ugh.

She fixed her gaze over Jamie's shoulder as they danced to another slow song, refusing to meet his eyes even though the inches between their bodies made it possible. She'd lost interest in her own antics, and without the thrill of trying to wind Jamie up she was suddenly very bored.

"I'm just going to hit the ladies' room," she said as the song ended.

"I'll go look for Chief Meuller," Jamie offered.

Eddie nodded and left him to grab her clutch and head out to the restroom.

* * *

Eddie knew it wasn't _really_ Jamie's fault, and she didn't have a right to be upset with him. She wasn't his girlfriend, after all. He had no obligation to do what she wanted. It was more important for him to schmooze with the important people at this conference, even if that schmoozing had to happen at stupid car museums, than it was for him to entertain her. And she'd witnessed the entire conversation. That chief guy didn't seem like he'd ever take no for an answer.

But _damn_ , she wanted to go to the zoo.

She leaned into the mirror to touch up her lip gloss but stopped before the wand touched her skin. She didn't really want to be here anymore. She _definitely_ wasn't in the mood to go out afterwards like she and Jamie had talked about before. Though she forced herself not to be angry or _too_ immature about the change of plans, her disappointment still sapped her energy.

With a sigh Eddie closed the lip gloss and replaced it inside her clutch. Should she tell him? No—he'd insist on leaving with her, and she sort of just wanted to wallow alone. Plus who knew how long it would take to track him down amongst the other two hundred uniforms in the enormous ballroom? So instead she sent him a text— _Hey, I'm super tired so I'm going up to bed. No big deal. You stay, have fun, I'll see you in the morning_ —before heading out of the hotel ballroom, across the lobby, and up the elevator to her room.

* * *

This was a disaster.

Chief Meuller was nowhere to be found—though if he had found him, Jamie had no idea what he would've said to politely decline the invitation. _Hey, sorry, lifelong friend who is trying to do something nice make up for missing my big speech yesterday—but I'm really hoping my partner won't be_ just _my partner for much longer, and all she wants is to go to the zoo and at this point I will do pretty much anything to make her happy_. Nope, wouldn't work.

When his phone buzzed with Eddie's text, his stomach clenched. She was really upset, he worried, and all the progress he thought they'd made this weekend was ripped right out from underneath them. It would be business as usual when they got back to New York.

That couldn't happen. He steeled his jaw, determined to find Chief Meuller and spew whatever BS was necessary to get them out of tomorrow's little field trip.

But even after rounding the perimeter of the ballroom twice, winding between the rows of circular tables, and checking the wide hallway outside, he couldn't find the chief or his wife again. With Eddie gone he had no reason to stay, so with a heavy sigh he returned to his room.

Jamie went straight to the adjoining door but found her side latched closed. He dropped his forehead against the cool metal for a moment, working up the nerve to tell her that the museum trip was still on—and preparing for the furious reaction he anticipated from her. And then he knocked.

The door swung away from him and he let his eyes travel up her body. Instead of that stunning green dress she now wore an oversized t-shirt and crew socks that pooled around her ankles. Her makeup was gone and her hair up, and she really did look exhausted.

"Did you get us out of it?" she sighed.

One side of his mouth quirked up sadly as he shook his head. "I couldn't find the chief again. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I'll come up with something tomorrow—we can just ditch them and—"

"No, don't do that. You can't be rude to your dad's friend. And anyway, I checked the weather and it's supposed to rain most of the day tomorrow."

"Eddie, I know you want to go to the zoo and that's more—"

"Really, Jamie, it's okay." She looked up at him with a forlorn smile that tore through his chest. "The chief's right, anyway—the car museum sounds right up your alley. You'll like it. Let's go downstairs for breakfast at like nine, okay?"

"Yeah—yeah, okay."

"Great. See you in the morning."

* * *

A/N: Man, so much momentum...and now it's just...gone. What, did you think this would be easy? ;)


	15. Chapter 15

Jamie laid awake for ages, unable to close his eyes. Each time he did, Eddie's sad, accepting face appeared in his vision. It was worse for him than seeing her angry. Her anger was passionate, fiery, as enthusiastic as her happy self but to the opposite extreme. But her disappointment tore straight to his core in a way he hadn't anticipated. _Seriously_ , she'd had _one_ request this entire time, and he couldn't make it happen for her? He was awful.

His options flashed through his head.

He didn't have the chief's cell number, but his father did—he could track down the number, call and cancel right now, and they'd be on their way to the zoo in nine hours. But no, it was almost midnight here, which meant that on the east coast Frank was definitely sleeping.

So he'd have to cancel in the morning. No big deal. If he saw the chief at breakfast, he'd do it then. If not, he would announce it when they met in the lobby at 10:30 and then he'd push Eddie out the door and head to the zoo. Or—they could just stand up the chief altogether and not even tell him about the change in plans. It would be incredibly rude, but for Eddie, he didn't care.

But _she_ would care. He knew her well enough to know that. For one thing, authority figures had always made her a little jumpy. Even if she didn't mind standing up another department's chief she would _definitely_ balk at the idea that said chief might let her own Commissioner know that his son and his partner had been so rude as to turn down his invitation—in favor of inappropriate time alone together, no less.

On top of that, he guessed she saw this invitation as somewhat of a _duty_ , which would've been the case regardless of how well the initiator knew their boss. She played herself off as demanding and self-centered at times, but her conscience would never let them skip something she saw as an obligation—to the job, to another cop, whatever.

Damn.

Well, the dumb car museum _was_ close to the zoo, so maybe he'd be able to duck them out of lunch and spend the afternoon at the zoo instead. Yeah, that could work. It would have to, because he was _determined_ to get Eddie to the zoo. He snatched his phone off the nightstand and texted her the idea, but no response came. She was asleep.

* * *

At 8:54am, Jamie turned off the TV and hopped off his bed. He couldn't wait any longer; he'd been up for over an hour, the time change and the unease in the pit of his stomach making it difficult to sleep in despite his exhaustion. He tapped three firm knocks on Eddie's door.

She opened it a moment later. "Hey," she chirped. "You ready for breakfast?"

He regarded her for a moment before answering. He couldn't read her tone, probably because he expected to be met with at least some degree of displeasure leftover from last night's change of plan—but there was none.

"Yeah, if you are," he finally said.

"When am I _not_ ready for breakfast? It could be four am and I'll be ready for breakfast," she joked, retreating into her room to find her shoes. He tapped his pocket to check for his wallet and followed her.

"I guess so," Jamie chortled.

She slid into flip-flops and Jamie opened the door for her as they walked to the elevator. "Did you see what I said last night?" he asked. "We can still maybe go to the zoo."

Eddie smiled but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "We'll see. We shouldn't flake out on your dad's friend if we don't have to."

"He would get over it," Jamie said.

"Yeah, but he might tell your dad—I'd just rather not push it."

"Eddie, my dad would not care at all that two of his cops chose _not_ to spend an entire day with some over-talkative chief he runs into five times a year."

Eddie just shook her head. Right now it wasn't Frank Reagan the PC she was worried about; it was Frank Reagan Jamie's dad. More and more in recent months she'd toyed with the idea of getting to know the Reagan family not as Officer Janko, cop, Jamie's work partner; but instead as Eddie, human being—maybe even Jamie's better half. Even if it didn't bother Commissioner Reagan, her boss, she worried that blowing off his friend might not endear her to Frank, Jamie's father.

"I'll just make you take me up to the Bronx Zoo for our next day off," she said, her smile more genuine now. "There are way more flamingoes here than in the Bronx. But it'll work."

"I can do that," Jamie agreed.

"Okay, but for today," she continued. "Do you think the chief will be good with that taco place from the other night? Because I _need_ to go back there one more time before we go home."

Jamie laughed. "I'll put in your request."


	16. Chapter 16

"I'm going to kill you," Eddie muttered, and not for the first time today, as Chief Meuller made yet another joke about her Porsche.

Jamie just grimaced sympathetically behind the chief's back. He'd mentioned Eddie's car on the way to the museum, hoping that her day might be a little more fun if the chief knew she was somewhat into cars too.

It had horribly backfired. At least twice in front of each exhibit, Chief Meuller had loudly made some unfunny crack along the lines of _you wouldn't know about that issue, though, would you, Eddie? You've got a Porsche!_ The first couple times both partners smiled and laughed. Then, for a while, Jamie had been genuinely amused by Eddie's increasingly forced reactions, which made her even more hilariously irritated. Now, though, they were both sick of it.

"I'm serious," she said. "I'm going to take you into the desert and kill you and bury you."

He inclined his head closer to her ear. "If I had a dollar for every time you've said that to me in the last four days…"

"One of these times I might actually do it."

" _It_?" Jamie repeated, one eyebrow flexing impishly.

Eddie inhaled sharply when she picked up on the euphemism and she shoved his shoulder hard, sending him stumbling sideways. "You nasty—I am going to _kill_ you."

He just laughed. Yes, he liked cars—specifically, classic muscle cars, and more specifically, Mustangs and anything built by Chevrolet. But there were disappointingly few of those and so the museum itself was incredibly boring.

He wasn't actually _bored_ , though. Eddie was with him. How could he be?

Elizabeth Meuller fell back from her husband's side to join Jamie and Eddie. "I'm sorry about all this," she said. "You know how he gets, Jamie. I'm sure you'd both rather be at the conference, learning things, instead of here."

Eddie shrugged. "No, we're having fun," she said. "Chief Meuller is pretty funny."

"He thinks he is, at least," Elizabeth said, and Jamie and Eddie murmured their agreement. "He's always thrilled to have a new audience."

"Well, it really is better than hanging out at the convention center," Jamie said. "She won't tell you herself but I don't think my partner could handle sitting still in a convention classroom for one more minute."

Eddie rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. "Sure, yeah, _I'm_ the one who's sick of police talks."

"At least you're a cop," Elizabeth offered. "The conference is relevant for you, even if it's boring. For me? Well, I've gotten a whole lot of pleasure reading done this weekend."

"Some trip to San Diego for you, then, huh," Eddie said.

"Well, we made it to a couple good restaurants around my husband getting sick, so it's not a total loss."

"Right?" Eddie cried. "Seriously, it's all about the food."

Jamie chuckled and shook his head.

"Speaking of food, you _are_ still letting us take you out to lunch, right? We'll go someplace nice—I owe you that for putting up with _him_ all morning." Elizabeth nodded at the chief, who was practically tearing up at the sight of the 1940s Cadillac in front of them.

Jamie and Eddie exchanged a glance and Eddie shrugged. "It's raining," she reminded him softly, a faint sadness glistening across her eyes.

"Yeah, sure, lunch would be great," Jamie said. "Eddie and I, we were actually thinking of dropping by the zoo since we're up here anyway—but not in this weather."

"Crazy, isn't it?" Elizabeth replied, and she apparently didn't read too far between the lines of his comment. "You fly all the way to California, where it's sunny almost every day of the year, get out of that Northeast winter—and it has to rain."

"It's been a wetter year out here than usual," Jamie said, accepting the change of subject. "They're not in a drought anymore, I don't think."

"I suppose that's good," Elizabeth sighed. "But still a bummer."

Jamie and Eddie simply nodded in agreement—she didn't know just how much of a bummer it was.

* * *

Jamie had an idea.

It came to him as he and Eddie enjoyed enchiladas and fish tacos across from the Meullers at a Mexican restaurant with a casual atmosphere and food that just couldn't quite measure up to the hole-in-the-wall taco place Eddie had wanted to go back to.

From helping him prepare for his speech for the last several months, to taking over the introduction to putting up with all his plans during the trip to now this, spending their last day at a stupid museum and not even going to her first choice of restaurant—he owed her. He owed her big time.

And he also couldn't leave the relative freedom of San Diego without finally, once and for all, defining where they stood.

So, when they got back to the hotel in the mid-afternoon, Jamie announced that he wanted to get a workout in.

"You want to join?" he asked Eddie.

As he knew she would, she made a face. "I don't work out on vacation, Reagan, how many times do I have to tell you?"

"Fine, fine—suit yourself."

He changed and left his room while she relaxed in front of her TV. In the elevator, now that there was no chance of Eddie walking in or overhearing, he pulled out his phone, tracked down the phone number he needed online, and dialed.

* * *

Next: Romantic Jamie. Need I say more? (I'm super excited to get to the next part of the story which is why I had to post one more chapter today, haha.)


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: So, that whole car museum thing was a bummer, am I right? Don't worry though. Things are about to get a lot more fun around here. ;)

* * *

 _We have dinner plans at 8_

 _I think the place is nice, you brought an extra dress right?_

 _We'll need to leave hotel at 7:40_

Eddie rolled her eyes as the three rapid-fire texts lit up her phone. Leave it to Jamie to go to the gym and run into someone _else_ who wanted his attention and, by extension, hers.

Whatever. She knew going in that this whole trip would be the Jamie show, so what the hell? She could spend their last night playing the dutifully supportive partner yet again—and she _did_ like that whenever they found themselves with groups of important people, those people always enjoyed a good, embarrassing Jamie story to balance out his impressiveness. She was great at providing those.

She heard Jamie return to his room about an hour after leaving, and she yelled his name as she popped another handful of M&Ms in her mouth.

He peeked his head around the adjoining door. "Yeah?"

"Who's dinner with tonight?" she asked. "And where are we going?"

"A steak and seafood place over on 5th—it's not that far. I looked it up online. Seems promising," he said. "And it'll be pretty small."

"Okay."

"Why are you eating?" he asked, stepping all the way into her room. "Eight isn't that far away."

"When have you ever known me to _not_ be hungry for steak and seafood?" she asked, tossing a brown M &M at him.

"True. If we had just a couple more days to keep eating out with all the brass from other departments, your appetite would be legend all over the country."

"Oh, shut up," she groaned, throwing another one.

He caught it against his belly and clapped it into his mouth. "Hey, but really, I'm sorry the zoo didn't work out."

"And really, I told you ten times it's not the end of the world," she replied. "It just means you and I will be spending this Thursday up in the Bronx."

"I guess that's fair," he conceded.

"Now would you get out of here and take a shower? I can smell you from here."

With a serious expression Jamie lifted his arm and sniffed his soaked shirt. "Don't think that's me—you might want to check yourself. See? I'll prove it!"

He crossed the room and leaned over the bed as Eddie squirmed away. "You are disgusting, Reagan," she squealed. "Get your sweaty ass off my bed! Get out!"

Laughing, he straightened up and returned to his own room.

* * *

There was no reason to be nervous, Jamie told himself. He went out with Eddie after practically every tour. She was his best friend. She knew him better than anyone—even, he thought sometimes, his family.

The converse was also true—nobody knew Edit Marie Janko better than Jamie did. He could predict her moods, cheer her up, count on her for anything. They hid nothing from each other.

So why was he so nervous?

Oh, right—because after tonight, if things went the way he hoped, the nature of their relationship would never be the same.

He took a steadying breath as he knocked on her door.

"In here!" she called.

He entered her room and followed her voice to the bathroom. She stood at the vanity with bobby pins sticking out from between her lips as she placed one in her hair.

"You look great," he told her.

"Yeah, thanks," she said idly, with barely a glance in his direction. He reminded himself she still thought this was just another dinner with more powerful cops—she had no idea. "I'm almost ready." She plucked another bobby pin from her mouth and brought it up to her hair. Her blonde locks were mostly down but she was taking pieces from her temples, twisting them, pinning them back at the crown of her head.

"We have a couple minutes," he said.

"Is it still raining out?"

"Uh, no, I think it stopped a little while ago."

"Good, because my hair looks great—it would be a damn waste…" She placed the last pin and turned to face him, enjoying the view of him dressed up in a suit without a tie. "Alright. You ready?"

"Let's go." He offered his arm and she took it as her face melted into a soft smile.

* * *

"You never told me who we're eating with," Eddie pointed out as Jamie held the restaurant door open for her. "Is it people we've already met?"

Jamie just smiled at her and approached the hostess. "Reagan, party of two."

"Great, sir, just one moment," the hostess said.

Eddie's brow furrowed and she swallowed down the butterflies that had suddenly exploded in her stomach. "Party of two?"

"I never told you we were meeting anyone," Jamie winked. "You made that up on your own."

"Right this way, please."

Eddie felt Jamie's hand press lightly into her back, urging her forward. "Jamie," she murmured. "What are you doing?"

" _We're_ just going out for a nice dinner," he said innocently.

"Why?"

"I saved a hundred bucks, not taking you to the zoo. Might as well spend it on something else you love, right?"

She found herself speechless, able to offer only a small laugh and a smile as they arrived at their booth.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Here you go, my impatient friends. :) I'm almost caught up to my pre-written chapters and I'm back to my regular work schedule with kids and a lot less time to write, so updates might have to slow down a little after this. Enjoy! -Sandy

* * *

This was so easy.

Of course it was—it was Jamie. Despite his constant teasing about her eating habits, she'd never had to be anything other than herself with him. And now that her jitters subsided—she'd been pleasantly surprised that this dinner was just for them, but she'd also felt a little ambushed—she was having a great time.

They spent a long time making fun of all the important people they'd interacted with over the last several days, wrapping up with over-the-top impressions of Chief Meuller from the car museum that had them both doubled over laughing. Eddie grabbed Jamie's menu and announced that she would order for him because he could _not_ waste a restaurant like this with an entrée salad. He snatched it back with a joke about how he could just eat off her plate, earning him a glare in return.

When their dinner came they both settled a bit. Eddie carved methodically through her filet and Jamie savored his salmon, and for a few minutes their conversation was limited to declarations of deliciousness until—

"Eddie."

She reached for her wine glass. "Yeah?"

"What you said yesterday about getting new partners—I think we probably should."

Eddie looked up from her glass and met his eyes, willing her heart rate to return to normal. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

Jamie took a deep breath. "Because—because—you've known about my feelings for you for a while now, and we've both agreed to keep things professional, but my feelings just keep getting stronger and stronger. I've been thinking about it a lot and—after this weekend I don't think I do the professional thing anymore."

"This weekend?" Eddie replied, playing dumb. His words were turning knots in her stomach. She didn't want to misunderstand or assume—she wanted him to completely spell it out.

"Yeah, this weekend—all of it. You have been driving me crazy in every way possible—but it's _good_. All the flirting, pretending we're a couple, pushing the limits—the other night, after the bar—"

"Jamie," Eddie interrupted softly.

"No, please, let me finish," he said, focusing his gaze on her small smile. "Look. I know we spend a lot of time together at home, but being here, it's felt different. I've seen this side of you that never shows on the job—like, I know it's a work conference, but there was nothing about work at all, and we are just two people on vacation. And I've had more fun with you in the last four days than I've had in a really long time."

Eddie bit the inside of her bottom lip.

"What I'm trying to say is—we've both always been able to compartmentalize, push down all the personal stuff when we're on the job. But after this weekend I don't think I can do that anymore, even if I wanted to. And I definitely don't want to. I can't go back to just _cop_ Eddie—I'm addicted to this side of you, the way you just _are_ when you aren't, you know, a crime-fighting badass in the dirty streets of New York. Crime-fighting badass Eddie is awesome—you know I think that. But you're also great when you're just Eddie, this beautiful, smart, hilarious woman who just makes me _happy_. And I really think it's time to give ourselves a chance for a different kind of partnership."

There it was. _Finally_.

She never thought he'd actually say these things, much less initiate the conversation. She curled her toes to release the excited energy that coursed through her body—he used the word _addicted_!—before she answered. "Jamie—I've been waiting to hear you say that forever."

"So—so you agree that we should give the boyfriend-girlfriend thing a shot."

She shook her head at his word choice. "No, listen. We can't just give this a _shot_. We can't start and then decide a month from now that it won't work out and just go back to being work partners—because everything you said about this weekend, well, it's true for me too. I don't think I can make myself go back. Actually, I know I can't."

Jamie smirked, making her heart cartwheel in her chest. "You'd be spoiled for life—is that what you're saying?"

"Oh my God," Eddie giggled, dropping her chin to cover her face with her hand.

"Because it's true, you know—and if we aren't going to be work partners anymore, there's no reason for us to wait any longer to start spoiling each other."

She looked up at him again, a devilish twinkle in her eye. "Reagan, what does that say about your opinion of me, that you think I'd put out on the first date?"

Jamie didn't miss a beat. "If this is a date—and _you_ used that word first—then it's definitely not our first one. How many times have I treated you to all-you-can-eat Tuesdays?"

"If I'm really about to be your girlfriend then damn right, this is a date," Eddie said. "And any past all-you-can-eat Tuesdays do not count."

"Come on, they totally do," Jamie argued. "You know as well as I do, we've practically been dating for years, just without the labels or the fun stuff."

"We did have a label— _partners_ ," she corrected. "And that label pushed anything else off the table. But now you're saying that just _being_ with me isn't fun enough for you?"

"Hey, I _just_ told you this has been one of the best weekends I've ever had. I'm just pointing out that there are _other_ fun activities we haven't gotten to."

"Oh, you mean like the zoo?"

Jamie laughed and shook his head as their waiter appeared.

"Everything still okay over here?" the waiter asked. "Let me get this plate out of your way, sir. Can I interest anyone in a dessert menu tonight? Maybe some coffee?"

"Um, no thanks, we're—"

"A dessert menu would be great," Eddie said over Jamie.

"Sure. I'll be right back with that."

Jamie raised an eyebrow as the waiter left them. "And here I thought you wanted to move on to the fun stuff."

Eddie shot him an incredulous look. "One, you're the one who started talking about sex exactly one second after suggesting we get new partners. Two, if you think I'd skip dessert for that, either you don't know me at all or you think _really_ highly of yourself."

"I told you—spoiled for life."

"That was my line first," Eddie reminded him. "And the only thing I'm really set on tonight is a chocolate lava cake. I'm not promising anything." It was a lie—God, it was a huge lie; she wanted him so badly—but it was just too much fun to dangle that carrot in front of him for as long as she could.

"Actually, I said it, not you. And fine. You can spend the night with a chocolate lava cake, then," he retorted. "See if I care."

"Oh, you care," she purred, and she narrowed her eyes as her foot reached across to nudge his leg under the table. "You were ready to skip dessert and get right to it. _Patience_ is a _virtue_ , Jamie."

His leg broke contact with her foot as he shifted, leaning back and lifting his face towards the ceiling. "This is it. You said you were going to kill me fifteen times today—this is it. This is how I go."

"Oh, please, it's been three and a half years—an extra half hour won't kill you."

He picked up his head and peered at her through one eye. "You underestimate yourself, then, because every time you've touched me in the last four days—God, Eddie, you don't know how gorgeous you are."

"Oh, save it, buster," she scoffed, but she looked down at the table to hide her reddening cheeks.

"Dessert menus for you," the waiter said.

"Do we really—?" Jamie began.

"Yes," Eddie insisted.

"Well, I think she knows what she wants, so—"

"I'd really like to look over the menu, actually," Eddie said to the waiter without taking her eyes off Jamie. She smirked as he groaned. "Just in case I missed any of the desserts earlier."

"Of course. Take your time."

But she couldn't do this to him anymore. His face was twisted into a grimace like he was in physical pain. She wouldn't skip dessert but she didn't need to be _this_ mean, drag it out for _this_ long. "Um, actually, just the chocolate lava cake," she said.

"Yes ma'am, that'll be out in a few minutes."

Eddie finished off her wine and grinned at Jamie. "Don't worry. We'll eat fast."


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: This is probably all you get today. Enjoy. Thanks so much for all the reviews. Keep them coming. You're all the best!

* * *

A loud buzzing from somewhere in the room pulled Jamie out of a deep sleep.

Before he even opened his eyes, memories of last night came flooding back—Eddie in his suit jacket as they practically ran back to the hotel after dinner; pausing for one more reality check that yes, this was actually happening; and then finally letting go of everything that had held them back for so long…Jamie taking control, teasing her mercilessly, paying her back for the way she'd held him so close to the edge this whole trip; her hands, her mouth, her body—

It was real. It had truly happened. It wasn't a dream. The weight of her head resting in the dip of his left shoulder told him that, as did the heat of her body flush against his and the total numbness of his left arm. The scent of her shampoo overwhelmed his next deep breath and rendered his face—no, his entire body—into a smile of ultimate contentment.

"Reagan. Turn it off."

Her words came out as a distorted mumble against his skin. It took his fogged brain a moment to translate.

Right. The damn alarm.

Jamie tried to shift Eddie off him but she groaned in protest and draped an arm over his stomach. Dropping a kiss on the top of her head, he tucked her arm close to her body and slipped out of bed. The sound was coming from the top of the dresser, where he'd managed to drop his phone and wallet in the frenzy of the night before.

"Eddie," he said softly. "We have to get up."

She adjusted in the darkness, moving into the warm spot Jamie had vacated, but she didn't answer.

He crossed back to the head of the bed and flicked on the lamp as he sat down next to her. "We have a plane to catch, Eddie. Come on."

When she still didn't respond he slid one hand under the covers and trailed it across her stomach as he leaned down to kiss her exposed shoulder. Finally she opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him. "Don't start anything you can't finish, buddy."

"I always finish what I start," he murmured as he found her hand and intertwined their fingers. "Just let me go turn on the shower."

Finally she sat up and raked a hand through her hair. "How much time do we have?" she called after him.

"Shuttle leaves in half an hour."

"What? Half an hour? Dammit, Jamie, I still have to pack!" She flung the covers off and swung her feet to the floor. In a huff she gathered her clothes from the intermixed trail on the carpet as she hurried into her room.

Jamie leaned around the doorframe and watched her as she threw open the top of her suitcase. Haphazardly she began to pull out the mess of unfolded fabric that overflowed from inside, tossing it all onto her perfectly made bed. "How long does it take to refold your clothes?" he whined.

She shook out the satiny floral dress she'd worn last night, and one of Jamie's socks fell from it. She balled it up and pegged it at him. "It's not like this is the last time you'll ever see me naked, Reagan. Just go shower."

* * *

The eastern horizon was just starting to lighten as the shuttle approached the airport. Jamie's arm was draped around Eddie's back so that his hand rested on her forearm. He tightened his grip on her arm into a light squeeze to get her attention.

"We're here," he told her.

She picked up her head from Jamie's shoulder. "Don't want to move."

"Me neither. Now let's go."

Eddie groaned a wordless complaint but she pulled herself up and shuffled off the bus as Jamie followed behind. He lifted both their suitcases off the luggage rack and handed Eddie hers once they reached the curb. She situated her suitcase handle in one hand as Jamie held her other one.

"Hey, at least this line isn't as long as it was on the way out here," Jamie pointed out as they veered towards security.

Eddie just yawned in response.

Jamie huffed out a small laugh. "What's wrong, tiger? Long night last night?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "I don't know how you look so awake."

"It's because waking up to you is way better than caffeine," he smirked.

"Oh, you think you're so cute," Eddie scoffed, but she let him catch a glimpse of her playful smile before she looked away. "I still want coffee."

"Of _course_ you do."

"And a banana."

"Yes ma'am."

"And a nap."

"We have a five-hour flight ahead of us and I'll be your pillow the whole time."

Eddie turned her head toward him and her lips stretched into a close-mouthed smile. "I know we're only nine hours into this whole thing but so far you make a decent boyfriend, Reagan."

He stopped and let go of her hand so that he could flatten his palm on his own chest, exaggeratedly offended. "Only _decent_?"

"Yeah—that 4:30 wakeup call cost you some points."

"How is that my fault? You'd rather I let us miss our flight?"

Eddie narrowed her eyes at him. "No. But _you're_ the one who booked it so early."

"You know, most people would just say, _Wow, Jamie, thanks for the free trip to California! You're the best!_ "

"Yeah, well, I'm not most people."

Jamie laughed at her. "Now _that's_ the damn truth."


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: This story was originally going to be a few chapters long and Jamie and Eddie weren't going to get together. Well, now we're 20 chapters/23,000 words in, Jamie and Eddie are dating, and a couple ideas for sequels/continuations are floating through my head. (It'll be a while before any of those happen, though.) Ha. Probably 3 more chapters after this one. Thanks to you all for making this so fun to write! -Sandy

* * *

"Hey, are you awake over there? Boarding starts in five minutes."

"Wide awake," Eddie replied without opening her eyes.

"Obviously. You done with this?" Jamie took the coffee cup from her hand and got up to throw it away.

"No, wait!"

"Hmm?"

"Give that back—no, the other one," she said when Jamie held out her cup. He gave her a questioning look as he handed her his own coffee cup instead.

"Why do you want mine?"

She drained the remaining contents of his coffee. "You always toss yours with a sip left," she said.

"What? No I don't."

"The only time you finish a whole cup of coffee is if it's in a regular mug. When it's got a lid, you don't. Okay, you can throw them out now."

"Ladies and gentlemen in the boarding area for Flight 1482, service to Newark, unfortunately the crew has discovered a maintenance problem with the aircraft during their routine safety check. Boarding will be delayed for at least thirty minutes while the problem is pinpointed and addressed," the gate agent announced. "We will keep you updated as we hear more. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

Eddie perked up. "Oh, good, we have time for real food."

"Half an hour ago you said you weren't that hungry."

"Well, excuse me for not wanting to stuff myself at the ass crack of dawn—but _now_ I'm hungry. I want a breakfast burrito."

"What's this? Is there actually a limit to the famous Janko appetite? Because if I remember right, you said not twenty-four hours ago that you could be ready for breakfast at 4am."

"Guess I'm not as young as I used to be."

Jamie told her he wasn't hungry and offered to stay with her bag and save their seats rather than join her breakfast burrito quest. She returned to the gate fifteen minutes later, Styrofoam takeout box in hand.

"Success?" Jamie asked.

"Of course," Eddie said. "Any update on the plane?"

"Not yet."

He watched her unwrap the foil and enjoy the first couple bites of the burrito before he grabbed her wrist and tried to steer the food into his mouth.

Eddie cupped her other hand protectively over the top of the burrito and yanked her arm free. "Hey, watch it—if you think I'll be any happier to share food with my boyfriend instead of my partner, well, you are _wrong_."

"And here I thought dating you would open up a whole new world of benefits," he pouted.

"Last night's benefit package wasn't enough for you?"

Jamie grinned and started to respond but the loudspeaker cut him off.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our crew has discovered that the mechanical problem with the aircraft today is a hydraulic leak. This is a serious issue that takes several hours to fix. As of right now we are looking to see if we can replace it with another aircraft but this does mean there will be additional delays. We thank you for your patience."

Around the gate area, most of the other passengers griped and complained about the news. Eddie just scowled at Jamie and said, "See? We did _not_ have to get up at 4:30."

"We did when we thought our plane was leaving at 6:45," he said.

"Shouldn't they notice this kind of thing earlier than, I don't know, ten seconds before everyone is supposed to get on the plane?"

Jamie shrugged. "First flight of the day for the plane—the crew got to the gate five minutes after we did and then they went out to check everything. Didn't you notice? You were wide awake after all."

Eddie rolled her eyes and turned back to her food.

They waited for about an hour as some of the other passengers became increasingly restless. Every few minutes someone marched up to the gate agents and demanded an update, only to be told to sit and wait with everybody else.

"They do know it's not the gate person's fault, right?" Eddie wondered as they watched a particularly irate businessman raise his voice—something about how this _always_ happens when he flies and he'll never use this airline again.

"They've got to blame somebody," Jamie said, "even if it's the wrong person."

"Would they rather fly on a plane that doesn't work?"

"A few Christmases ago—wow, must've been ten years now—my whole family went down to Florida for the week after Christmas. We ended up on two different flights so half of us got out okay but Danny, Linda, the boys and I were on a later flight and we got delayed because of a snowstorm. And man, you should've seen Danny, yelling that they were depriving his boys of this vacation they'd been dreaming about all year—Linda had to go intervene, and meanwhile the boys and I were perfectly happy playing Go Fish."

Eddie grimaced. "Remind me never to fly anywhere with Danny, then. You're a much better travel buddy."

"Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately we were unable to secure another aircraft for this flight. At this time Flight 1482, service to Newark, is canceled. Passengers, please proceed to the customer service desk located next to gate 21 and our representatives will be happy to assist you in making other travel arrangements. All passengers will also be receiving a travel voucher. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

"Well then," Eddie sighed. "It's not like anything else went as planned on this trip, so why would the flight home?"

Jamie frowned at her. " _Nothing_ went as planned?"

She snorted out a laugh. "You think I left New York _planning_ to have to come back and tell Sarge that we need new partners?"

"Hey, _you_ started the whole thing—not me."

"Oh, now, let's not place any blame," Eddie said airily. "We should go get in line."

They followed the remaining stragglers to the customer service center a couple gates away; most of the other passengers had already scrambled over and jockeyed for an early position in line. At the long desk, four frazzled employees rushed to accommodate the 160 displaced passengers, most of whom loudly voiced their displeasure at the whole situation.

Finally it was Jamie and Eddie's turn. The employee hardly looked at them as she pulled up their reservation and explained their options. Since they were so close to the back of the line, there weren't many. The other passengers had already taken any seats that were left on the airline's midday flight to Newark, and today's only other direct flight was the red-eye departing at 9:45pm. There was one flight each to JFK and LaGuardia, but those were full too. The best the agent could offer was a connecting flight through LA or Chicago, leaving in the early afternoon.

"If there's no chance of anything earlier, then we'll take the Chicago one," Jamie said, trying to be as polite as possible given the crap the poor employees had taken already. But he didn't really want to wait around the airport for five or six more hours.

"I'm sorry, there's not," the agent replied flatly. "I'll put you on the standby list but I doubt you'll get a seat until the Chicago flight."

"Wait—is there anything later?" Eddie asked.

"Later?" Jamie said.

"Later, like middle or late afternoon," Eddie specified.

The agent frowned at her and looked back to her screen. "Middle or late afternoon…there's another connection through LA, but that would have you on the red-eye from there—oh, and that flight is pretty full. Let's see. I can put you both on the 3:30 flight to Denver, which lands at seven local time—you'll have about an hour layover and you'll get to Newark a few minutes after midnight."

"We'll take that one," Eddie blurted before Jamie could say anything.

"We will?" Jamie said. "Eddie, we'll get home two hours sooner if we go through Chicago."

"I'm glad you can tell time, Jamie," she said. "But this way, we get two extra hours at the _zoo_!"


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: It's a good day...Eddie gets to go to the zoo and we get a new episode tonight! Let's hope for lots of Jamko (but my expectations are low as always, ugh). -Sandy

* * *

"So, um," Jamie said to the back of Eddie's head. "Where to first?"

She spun around and yanked the map from Jamie's hands as he tried to unfold it. Impatiently she shook it open but she held it down at her side without looking at it. "Let's just go this way. Koalas, pandas…" She grabbed his hand and pulled him along behind her, past the arrow pointing out the koala exhibit.

Jamie wriggled his hand in hers until their fingers were intertwined. "Are koalas the ones that grab their own arms instead tree branches and then fall down and die?"

"What?"

"Koalas. Don't they fall out of trees all the time?"

Eddie shook her head. "No, I think you're thinking of sloths. And that's not even true."

"How do you know?"

"Because how could it even be possible? What, sloths don't have nerves in their arms? They can't feel if their hand is wrapped around their arm instead of a tree branch?"

"Aren't they really dumb animals?"

"Slow, yeah, and they're weird, ugly-cute. But I don't think they're dumb."

"How can something be ugly _and_ cute?" Jamie laughed.

"Um, _you_ are," Eddie said, and she jabbed an elbow into his ribs before galloping up ahead now that the koala habitat was in sight.

"Hey!" Jamie yelled.

"Come on, Reagan, you walked right into that one," she smirked. She circled back and stopped right in front of him, blocking his path. "Don't worry. You're actually just cute." Rising up on tiptoes, she kissed him before turning back to look at the koalas.

Jamie looped an arm around her waist and tugged her around so she faced him again. "I forgot—we can do that now," he said, and he kissed her forehead before tipping her chin up to peck her lips. "I like it."

Eddie pushed against his chest, trying to wiggle free. "Hey, quit distracting me," she complained. "There are koalas!"

"Glad you've got your priorities straight, Janko."

"You're coming back to New York with me, mister. These koalas aren't so lucky."

They fell into step next to each other and held hands as they strolled along the outside of the habitat. Eddie kept her eyes on the koalas, completely enthralled as they lazily chewed on leaves. But Jamie hardly noticed the animals. He couldn't take his eyes off Eddie as she excitedly jabbered and pointed, wanting to share with him every single detail that she saw.

They passed elephants, big cats, and camels before reaching the arctic area. Two keepers were inside the penguin enclosure with buckets of fish, and Eddie watched the entire feeding as the penguins swam and swarmed and wrestled each other out of the way to get to the food.

"When I was little I thought it would be fun to have a pet penguin," she shared.

"Yeah? Why?"

"Because they're funny! And look how adorable! But my dad told me they grow too big to keep in the bathtub, which was my plan, so it never happened."

"You couldn't come up with a better idea than keeping a penguin in your bathtub?" Jamie laughed.

"Hey, I was like six, Reagan. And it was before we moved to the house with the pool."

"You know, once two people have had sex I really think they can move on to a first-name basis," he joked quietly.

"I call you Jamie all the time— _Reagan_ ," she replied. "But I still have to save the last name for when you get a little too snarky for your own good."

"So when you're at my dad's house and you call me Reagan and eight other people answer you, what happens then?"

Eddie's eyes shot up to Jamie's face. "Um, what? Listen, champ, we are _still_ in California so let's wait until we get home before we worry about your family or the fact that everyone in the precinct is going to know that I'm the girl who got partnered with the boss's son and then slept with him on a work trip."

"For what it's worth, everyone thinks we did it a long time ago anyway."

"Nope," Eddie warned, and she brought the back of her hand up against his chest to keep him from talking. "Until we get home, you are only mine, and we don't need to worry about anyone else."

"Okay, fine, I can live with that."

"Oh my God, look at the polar bear!" She bounced on the balls of her feet, lightly smacking his arm to get his attention. "It's yawning!"

"Looks like you in the morning."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one who took fifteen minutes to comb their hair before we left the hotel."

Jamie shrugged. "I had to fill the time with something, since _someone_ still had to pack."

"I was going to pack last night before I went to bed," Eddie defended. " _You're_ the reason that didn't happen. Everything goes back to you, Jamie, so quit trying to make it my fault."

With a grin she shouldered him to the side. He dramatically fell away from her, stumbling sideways until he reached a nearby bench and righted himself. "I've got your boarding pass, you know," he called. "I could leave you in California."

"You put all the boarding passes in my purse, genius, so you better shape up or _I'll_ leave _you_. Now let's go, there are monkeys coming up!"

They'd arrived at the zoo close to opening when it was still practically empty. Now, though, it was starting to get a little more crowded. The place wasn't too packed on a Monday at the end of February but Jamie and Eddie still had to dodge a few elementary school field trip groups as she dragged him along. Any hints of tiredness were lost beneath her overflowing excitement about each new animal they saw. Seeing her like this, having so much fun by his side, Jamie had never been more grateful about a canceled flight.

For a moment Jamie flashed back to his childhood, remembering how his parents used to try their best to feign interest whenever he or his siblings pointed out such mundane things as cool rocks or funny-sounding birds. Even as a young child Jamie had been perceptive enough to know when it was all an act. He couldn't help but think how lucky Eddie's future kids would be to have her as their mother, how excited they would be about life with her tireless enthusiasm as their example—how lucky _he_ would be if her kids were also his, and he got to witness it all every single day. But no, he couldn't get ahead of himself. As long as he'd harbored strong feelings for Eddie, and as drawn-out as their undefined almost-more-than-partnership had been, he had to remind himself that they were hardly even _dating_ yet. He couldn't risk spooking Eddie by bringing up anything like that so early on.

And anyway, if this whole thing went the way he hoped, there would be plenty of time to imagine their future together—and then a whole lifetime to live it.

"Reptile walk!" Eddie exclaimed. She reached back and took Jamie's hand again as he caught up to her from reading a plaque. "Come on!"

They crossed a bridge and ended up underneath an open-walled pavilion full of native California reptiles. They saw a couple of lizards first, and then they stepped in front of a snake habitat. The four-foot snake lounged lazily atop a flat rock. Eddie tightened her grip on Jamie's hand and tucked herself behind his shoulder as she stared.

"What are you doing?" he laughed, dropping her hand to put his arm around her shoulders.

She ducked under his arm and hugged it in front of her. "Snakes creep me out."

"It's behind glass!"

"I know. But still."

"Well, we don't have to look at the snakes. There are lizards, turtles…" He started to step away, but Eddie tugged on his arm to bring him back. "What?" he asked.

"They creep me out but I still like to look at them!" she said. "I mean, they're just so—weird. How they move without legs? Their muscles? Scales? Ugh." She shuddered. "They're so freaky. It's awesome."

He shook his head at her. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Yes it does!" she insisted. "Come on, you've never been both scared and fascinated by something all at the same time?"

Jamie pivoted to face Eddie and tugged her closer with the arm she wasn't clinging to. "If I said _you_ , would you be pissed?"

She wrinkled her nose but it wasn't enough to hide the little smirk. "No, actually, that's a damn good answer. Just make sure you remember it."


	22. Chapter 22

Jamie glanced over at Eddie and then did a double take. "Hey," he said. "I'm starting to think this is not just a morning thing. It's more of an _airport_ thing."

"Huh?" Eddie mumbled.

"You just turn into a tired zombie the second we walk into an airport. How come you're tired at three o'clock?"

She opened one eye and squinted at him. "We've been up way too long and I won't make it to my place until probably one in the morning and we've got to be at the precinct thirteen hours from now so leave me alone."

"Thirteen—? Oh, right, it's six at home."

"So smart."

"I catch on," Jamie smirked. "It doesn't look like this plane will be totally full so maybe we'll get a whole row to ourselves and you can sleep on me."

"I plan to."

"Do you want anything else before we board?"

"Nope."

"Okay then."

True to her word, Eddie curled up against Jamie as soon as they sat down on the plane and hardly moved for two and a half hours. Jamie didn't mind the body heat in the chilly plane—they'd checked their suitcases through to Newark before heading to the zoo, and he hadn't thought to grab a sweatshirt from his bag first. He dozed most of the time too, waking up only long enough to drink some water and adjust the arm that was going numb between his head and the side of the airplane.

The moment the plane touched down in Denver Eddie sat up straight, suddenly wide awake. "I love flying into the mountains," she said as she stretched as much as she could in the small space.

"Why—the view? I could've opened the window," Jamie yawned. He lifted the window shade a few inches. "Wait, no, it's already dark."

"No, the altitude. My ears don't hurt at all."

"What's that got to do with the altitude?"

"High altitude means less pressure change because the plane doesn't have as far to descend. And so your ears don't hurt as much."

"Oh," Jamie said. His ears weren't bothering him either but he didn't know that there was a real reason behind it.

"How far is our next gate?" Eddie asked. "We have time to get food, right?"

Jamie slid his boarding passes out of the front pocked of his backpack. "Looks like we're going from B18 to B42, unless they've changed it. So we have to move fast."

Eddie shook her head dismissively. "It's a straight shot. If we're still in the B gates then it won't take us long to walk over."

"I take it you know where you want to eat, too?"

She shrugged. "There are a bunch of places in the middle of the terminal, like a food court. I think I'll get Chinese but you can do whatever you want."

"Chinese is fine with me. But we've only got forty-five minutes till we have to board for Newark so we can't waste any time."

"I don't know, I was pretty okay with missing our flight this morning," Eddie said suggestively. "We could spend the night in Denver, there's this really great restaurant downtown at the 16th Street Mall…"

"There's a difference between our flight getting canceled and missing a flight because we're late. We'd have to use our free flight vouchers from this morning to get ourselves home."

Eddie rolled her eyes. "Ugh, Reagan, you're no fun."

"You won't be saying that when I find us a really great place to go when we _do_ use those vouchers. Five hundred bucks each? That'll completely cover a round trip to Florida, or it'll take a big chunk out of the fare to a cool city in Europe…"

"For a cop conference at Scotland Yard?" Eddie joked. "Or are we allowed to go on real, actual vacations now?"

"We can do whatever we want. You know, I've always wanted to go to Rome. It's so full of history, plus all the architecture, the art—and I wouldn't mind seeing the Vatican."

"The _food_ ," Eddie exhaled longingly before Jamie could finish.

"Do you ever think about anything else?" he asked.

Eddie shrugged dismissively. "You cross my mind every so often."

They filed off the plane and into the terminal. Jamie ducked into the closest bathroom but he didn't see Eddie right away when he came out. He glanced inside the next-door sandwich place, wondering if she'd gotten distracted by food again. She wasn't there—but when he came back into the hallway he saw her right in front of him, marching in the wrong direction on a long moving sidewalk.

"There you are," he said, ignoring what she was doing. "Let's go get food."

She kept walking in place as if she was on a treadmill. "I can't," she giggled. "I'm stuck."

"Eddie, come on," he sighed with a small smile. "We've got to keep moving."

"I _am_ moving. I'm just not going anywhere."

Caught somewhere between entertained and a little exasperated, Jamie went to the beginning of the moving walkway and glided towards her. He caught an arm around her middle and tugged her along beside him, backwards. "What if it was crowded? What if there were other people going the _right_ way?"

She rotated her body to face forward but she kept her head turned towards him so he could see her mischievous grin. "Aw, what's the matter, babe? Am I embarrassing you?"

He poked her waist, making her flinch into his side. "Yes, excuse me, gate agent? Can I get a different seat on this flight? I'm next to this crazy lady who doesn't know how to use a moving walkway."

"Like you would ever," Eddie scoffed. "You told me yourself—you don't like sitting next to strangers on planes."

"Yeah, and you're the strangest of them all."

"Hey!"

Jamie grinned and squeezed her closer—he was still getting used to the fact that he could touch her affectionately whenever he wanted, and he didn't think he'd ever get tired of it. "Come on, Janko," he mocked. "You walked right into that one."

* * *

A/N: Amina, I wish I could hug you back! Thanks so much for making me smile :)


	23. Chapter 23

"Hey Jamie, what's going to be worse?"

"Hmm?"

"What's going to be worse—your family or the precinct?"

Jamie finally opened his eyes. He let himself adjust to the darkness of the plane, looking first at Eddie's hand on his leg and then to her face. "What do you mean, worse?"

"Telling them about us. Will it be harder to tell your family or the bosses?"

"Harder how?" He finished the last sip of water in his plastic cup. "My family will tease me but my dad hopefully won't let Danny and Erin take it too far. Mostly they'll just be happy for us, I think. They already like you so they'll be excited."

"But work…"

"Yeah, we'll both get crap there, I'm sure," Jamie admitted. "Why? Are you worried about it?"

Eddie shrugged. "I was just curious what you think. I'm not too excited about telling Sarge but the precinct is all I have to worry about. I don't have a whole family to announce it to, like you do."

"Even at the precinct I don't think it'll be too awful. Everybody will talk about it for five minutes and then it'll get boring and they'll move on."

"What if they transfer one of us out?" Eddie asked.

"Renzulli won't let that happen."

"How are you so sure?"

"He promised me a couple years ago—as long as we didn't do anything behind his back, and if we were honest if we ever decided to date, he'll try not to let any of the bosses make it a huge deal."

Eddie sat up straight. "What? You and Renzulli talked about this a couple _years_ ago?"

Jamie blushed. "Uh, yeah," he chuckled. "There was one call—Sarge thought maybe I had feelings for you and he threatened to split us up afterwards. I promised him nothing was going on."

"You're telling me they suspected a couple _years_ ago?" She slid back down in her seat so that her butt almost hung off the end with her legs stretched out under the seat in front of her. "God, this is so much worse than I thought. You know what, maybe I _should_ transfer. Staten Island doesn't get a lot of the Manhattan gossip, right?"

"Eddie, Eddie, it's just fine," Jamie soothed. "And since when has it bothered you that people thought we were sleeping together?"

"Since we actually slept together."

He frowned at her in confusion.

"It was one thing when it wasn't true, Jamie. Like people could think whatever they wanted, but at least you and I and hopefully the bosses knew that nothing was going on. But now something _is_ going on."

"Eddie, I still don't understand. I'm really happy that this is happening."

"Me too, Jamie, me too. It's just—I never liked it when people accused me of sleeping with the PC's son to get ahead, but it didn't matter when we weren't doing anything. But now, what are people going to think of us dating? They'll think I'm just in it for the hook and they'll think the bosses have been letting you get away with having sex with your partner for who knows how long because they're too scared of your dad to write you up."

"We still know that those things aren't true," Jamie pointed out.

"But it's not fair. Like, if they understood how by-the-book you are…"

"Or that having ties to the Reagan name will not actually help you move up in the department," he added.

"I just don't want to deal with it," Eddie concluded.

"Me neither," Jamie agreed. "But like I said, everybody will get over it. We'll both stay at the 12th, we'll keep our hands to ourselves when we see each other in the precinct—and if people really won't shut up, at least you and I will know that it's a load of BS."

"What about your dad?"

"What about him?" Jamie said. "He of all people knows the kind of cop I am, and I've told him the kind of person you are. If he asks, we tell him nothing happened while we were riding together. He'll believe us and that'll be that."

"Danny and Erin?"

"They've been telling me I needed to grow a pair and ask you out for a really long time. Actually, Erin started with all that right when Renzulli talked to me about you."

"She did?"

"Yeah. She was all, _Eddie is perfect for you, follow your heart_ —like, more than two years ago."

"Took you long enough, Reagan." She paused for a second. "Okay, but then—what about _my_ dad?"

"What about him?"

"Will it—will he—do they—" she stuttered, and then she took a deep breath. "How will your family feel about you dating someone whose dad is a felon?"

"As long as _you're_ not a felon—which you're not, are you?" Jamie said, forcing his face into a concerned expression.

Eddie rolled her eyes and nudged him with her elbow. "Shut _up_ , Jamie, I'm serious. Didn't I say once that our backgrounds would make things harder if we ever dated? You have, like, this perfect family that loves each other and spends time together and does everything for each other—and I've got a dad in prison and a mom I haven't had a real conversation with in forever."

"That doesn't matter to me and it won't matter to my family. Do you _know_ about my family business? Every single day they all see situations that are just as difficult. If you want to really impress them you'll have to do a lot better than a white-collar criminal dad."

Eddie deflated. She appreciated his attempts to joke away her worries but this wasn't some small thing they were talking about; this was her family. Her father's mistakes had affected her more, she figured, than Jamie even knew, since he didn't meet her until the damage was already done. She wanted to believe him that his family wouldn't judge her or disapprove of their relationship because of her father—but other than their work partnership, this was the largest thing that had held her back from even _thinking_ about dating Jamie. She couldn't just brush off years' worth of apprehension so easily.

"Eddie," Jamie said when she didn't respond for a moment. He squeezed her knee and took his hand away. "I mean it when I say that it will be fine. You're enough for me and that'll be enough for my family, okay? I promise."

She offered a drawn smile. "You sound so sure about that, Jamie."

Jamie chuckled. "You remember a little while ago when you accused me of being hung up on my ex because I haven't had anything serious since she left?"

"Yes," Eddie said in a low voice, suspicious that he was bringing up the elusive ex-fiancée she'd heard almost nothing about.

"I wasn't hung up on her. Hell, I was over her so soon that afterwards I actually wondered if I'd ever really loved her. For a couple years there I was just too busy with work and things to really think about anything serious. But the issue for the last few years was that I couldn't ever get close to anyone else when—when you're a person who exists."

"Aw, Reagan," Eddie grinned. "You're sweet."

He slid his hand down her thigh until it rested on the inside of her knee, and he left it there this time. "And that's all you need, right? A sweet boyfriend. Because whatever anybody throws at us when we get home, we can deal with it together."

"God, and you say _I'm_ corny," Eddie scoffed.

"Okay, I was just trying to say something nice so you stop worrying. But you know what? Maybe I'll just stop being nice." He crossed his arms and set his jaw in his best attempt at solemnity.

Eddie raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, you just let me know how that works out for you, bud."

He couldn't hold the fake sternness anymore so he exhaled a small laugh. "Hey, really, though. We don't land for two more hours so let's just relax and not worry about anything until we have to."

"Sure. Because I'm definitely _not_ counting down the hours till we walk into the precinct and everybody finds out. Nope, definitely not doing that."

"I could run by my dad's house and dig Danny's old Santa Claus suit out of storage," Jamie suggested. "If I show up to the precinct wearing that tomorrow then trust me, nobody will even notice that we're dating."

Finally Eddie exhaled a cautious laugh. "There's one way to make sure I don't slip up with any PDA at work, that's for sure."

"Guess I should make a detour to Bay Ridge on the way home, then," Jamie said. "Because God knows it's hard for you to keep your hands off me."

Eddie shook her head, giggling a little more now. "No, no, please don't. You can't."

"For you? Don't think I wouldn't do it."

She smirked at him sideways. "Something tells me that you're not joking right now."

"I'm not!" Jamie laughed.

Eddie sighed and shifted in her seat so she could lean against him. "You know what, Reagan? We don't need any dumb Santa diversions," she said as he squirmed beside her to make them both more comfortable. "I think everything's going to be just fine."

* * *

A/N: The end! Thank you guys for making the writing process so much fun for me. Now to start fleshing out a sequel... :) -Sandy


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